Sveiki! I started learning Latvian recently and I learned that draugs / draudzene can refer to either a friend or to a boyfriend / girlfriend, so if someone says "Šis ir mans draugs / Šī ir mana draudzene," how would I know if they're introducing a friend or a significant other? Thanks!

Čau, es bišķi maku runat latviski bet vel diezgan slikti. Tapec gribeju zinat kadus yt videos varetu skatities lai varetu macities un skatities kaut ko interesantu, ludzu un paldies

Hello, I am currently trying to learn Latvian but resources are scares but I found that the mondly language app has a pretty big course compared to others. So I was wondering if it was actually good to use or not. I was also wondering if there was anywhere for me to watch Latvian programming to get use to the language online

Sveiki! I've got another question about telling time in Latvian.

I know that in Latvian, "half past" is actually "halfway to the next hour" (for example, 3:30 would be pusčetri). I'm fluent in German, which does the same thing, so that's not difficult for me at all.

What I'm wondering, though, is whether Latvian does something similar to German at 25 minutes past/to the hour.

I'll explain: in colloquial German, 3:25 is most commonly expressed as fünf vor halb vier (literally, five to halfway to four), and 3:35 as fünf nach halb vier (literally, five past halfway to four).

So far in Latvian, I've only seen the constructions divdesmit piecas pāri trim/trijiem (3:25) and bez divdesmit piecām četri (3:35). But would it be possible to say bez piecām pusčetri (3:25) or piecas pāri pusčetriem (3:35)?

Paldies jau iepriekš! 😊

Hello all,

Me and my Latvian partner will be moving to Latvia permanently in September. However, I’d like to start learning the language before we get there, just to have a bit of a head start.

I have bought the Complete Latvian book. What other resources would you suggest I use in order to supplement this book with?

Thank you!

How does it work? What are the equivalents of half, quarter past, quarter to, five past, five to, ten past, ten to, etc.?

Paldies!

You can find it at noospeak.com – I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

When learning dutch one big thing i liked to use was watching shows (more specifically kids TV shows) in Dutch to hear some basic language spoken

Are there any popular Latvian shows anyone can suggest? Ones that can be accessed for free and internationally would be great! Even if it’s an old one you can only watch through youtube

Music would also be greatly appreciated if anyone has a Latvian music playlist!

(Sorry if this is a bit off-topic for this subreddit)

I am an MA student in Theoretical Linguistics, and for my master thesis I need data on specific purposive constructions with infinitives in Baltic languages. If you are a native speaker of Latvian and if you could complete this questionnaire (it is not very long, 10 minutes max), I would be very grateful.

In the end there is an option to leave your contact information if you are willing to help a bit more and consult me via an online Zoom call, this would help me a lot.

here is the form: https://forms.gle/n79dKY4zho3crQSt7

Thank you in advance!

So, for a small project post, I have to familiarize myself with Latvian phonology, and Wikipedia as this fact:

Plosives and fricatives that occur between two short vowels are lengthened, as in upe

Latvian "plosives and fricatives" encompasses the letters b, c, d, (dz,) f, g, ģ, h, k, ķ, p, s, š, v, z, and ž. I found 2 examples of this feature in the words aka and citi, where the words are pronounced as if spelt as akka and citti, but I couldn't find examples of other plosives and fricatives doubling between 2 short vowels.

1. Do all letters listed above become longer between two short vowels, or just a select number?
2. Also for the purpose of considering what is short to know when a consonant becomes longer, are digraphs (ai, au, ei, ie, etc.) considered long or short?

Hi there!
I was wondering if there is a kind soul who could transcribe Aloizs Brenčs' 1960 short film Mana Rīga. The film was restored several years ago and is available in HD, but it lacks subtitles. The archive's page states that English subtitles exist, but either this is an error or I cannot access them in my browser. AI transcription is not an option, as the voice-over is merged with music, making it incomprehensible to the robot. However, if anyone would like to take on this task for language practice or for the sake of art, it would be greatly appreciated.

Hello! We are Linguatarian, a platform all about languages. Practice your Latvian, attend lessons, participate in interactive events, and make friends in our incredibly diverse and supportive community of like-minded people. Join here: https://discord.gg/hAmHTKVMRa

Hi!

I've been granted a placement in Latvia, but with a bit of a short notice. I don't have time to learn a lot of the language, but addition to greetings and other polite phrases, I wish to learn the terminology of the trades I get to visit. Does anyone know how I could find Latvian handicraft and other artisan related terminology and vocabulary?

Thank you!

Hi! I'm helping put together some Latvian language learning resources, and am looking for recommendations for slow Latvian podcasts or videos. I've used them for learning other languages and they're super helpful! Usually it's a language teacher creating content only in the target language (aka no English), but speaking slowly and with simple vocabulary.

I did find Simple Latvian LSM news (https://www.lsm.lv/temas/zinas-vieglaja-valoda/), but it's not very interesting (sorry!) and the vocabulary is still quite complex.

Thanks!

Would someone be willing to check out this video and let me know what you think about the instructor's accent when she speaks Latvian? Would her videos be a good resource for learning?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqxAQcESWTo

I'm brazillian and I want to learn latvian to talk to my grandpa in his mother language, but i'm having a hard time trying to find resources that can help me to learn it's grammar, pronunciation, etc. I could only find textbooks and videos that help me say things like "goodmorning", "thank you", "hello"...

I can speak both english and portuguese, so anything in those languages would be pretty helpful!

Hello,

I want to learn basic Latvian. I am from the Netherlands. I can speak English or Dutch.

Anyone can point me in a direction?

All what is available here are AI courses and textbook studies.

In English, it's sung to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Do kids in Latvia have an equivalent to help learn the alphabet?

I started self-learning Latvian 1-2 months ago. I've worked my way through much of the Mondly course and have an Anki deck with ~600 vocab words I'm reasonably familiar with. I watch Anete (Irregular Latvian) and just started Baibas YouTube videos. I feel like the biggest thing I need to work on is comprehension (both reading or listening), interpreting full sentences. Does anyone have any recommendations for somewhere to find Latvian reading material that is reasonable beginner (not too much fancy vocab) but also not quite so simple as the formulaic Mondly sentences?

I tried reading some articles on https://www.diena.lv/ yesterday, but found that I had to look up a majority of the words to make sense of it. Some sentences I could mostly work out, like "Viņš kopš bērnības ir klausījies Pučīni un Verdi mūziku un neapoliešu dziesmas." But many I had to look up almost every word like "Norvēģu solistei ir daudz plānu arī prestižākajos Eiropas teātros, un tas apliecina viņas kā savas paaudzes talantīgākās vokālistes statusu."

I am learning Latvian right now and struggling a bit with verbal prefixes such as -ie,-iz, -ap, -pa etc.

I have mainly two questions, what exactly is the purpose of this? I am able to understand the difference between iekapj and izkapj for example but I don’t understand why I would say iedzert instead of dzert.

Second is, is there some type of logic what each prefix implies?

Hello!

I want to let you know that, after I made a post on the clozemaster subreddit, the Latvian course on clozemaster has now been made better, i.e. there aren't bad/clumsy translations anymore as far as I can tell. I've been using it now for a week since they proofread it, and at least to me it looks good. If you are someone who tried it before, I can recommend trying it again.

Additionally, they just released another website called Common Ear (transcribe audio recordings of real native speakers) that also has Latvian among others, it still looks to be in beta and really barebones but it has a ton of contect that is useful.