For three weeks from today Kaunas citizens will be able to learn French, Spanish, German and Italian while travelling to work or studies by city transport. This is one of the initiatives of European Commission Representation in Lithuania on the occasion of European Day of Languages, which is being celebrated in all Europe on the 26th September.
Among the events dedicated for the European Day of Languages was a conference for schools, organised with Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), poetry readings, mind battles and other activities.
“We are all in a way participants of European Day of Languages, as it is very important to learn languages for us all. The purpose of this event is to emphasise the importance of being multilingual and to show fun ways of doing this”, says Egidijus Zaikauskas, a representative of European Commission in Lithuania.
From today, Kaunas citizens will be able to hear different phrases in Italian, Spanish, German and French in the city’s trolleybuses and busses.
“With this idea we are expecting to encourage Kaunas community to learn languages or to refresh their skills and knowledge of foreign languages. The world is becoming more and more global, and languages are more and more needed these days”, says Zaikauskas.
To encourage people to learn languages, European Commission Representation in Lithuania has created a short video, where people from other countries living in Kaunas are singing an unofficial Kaunas hymn “Žemyn upe”. Among them singing in Lithuanian and in their native Spanish, Estonian and French languages are KTU international students Stewen Naano, Margaux Kretz and Miguel Ángel Ramos Sierra.
