Latvian For Beginners (Lesson 2) : Basics

[Verner5]

Labdien Visiem! ,

Welcome to the second Latvian For Beginners Lesson.
Today we are going to learn some verbs ,how to count up to 20 and some vocabulary. Lets Start!

VERBS

BŪT-TO BE / LASĪT-TO READ

Es esmu - I am / Es lasu - I read

Tu esi - You are. / Tu lasi - You read

Viņ(š/a) ir - (S)he is / Viņ(š/a) lasa - (S)he reads

Mēs esam - We are / Mēs lasam - We read

Jūs esat - You are (pl.). / Jūs lasat - You read (pl.)

Viņ(i/as) ir - They are / Viņ(i/as) lasa - They read

Lasīt can also mean to pick berries, to pack a bag or to tidy toys or stuff. (Lasīt ogas, Salasīt somu, Salasīt mantas)
Dont let the prefixes to verbs in Latvian scare you, we will be learning about them another day but the prefix sa- means to do something completely.

ĒST-TO EAT / IET-TO GO

Es ēdu - I eat / Es eju - I go

Tu ēd - You eat / Tu ej - You go

Viņ(š/a) ēd - (S)he eats / Viņ(š/a) iet - (S)he goes

Mēs ēdam - We eat / Mes ejam - We go

Jūs ēdat - You eat (pl.) / Jūs ejat - You go (pl.)

Viņ(i/as) ēd - They eat / Viņ(i/as) iet - They go

NUMBERS

<pre> Masc. Femin. </pre>

1 - Viens Viena

2 - Divi Divas

3 - Trīs

4 - Četri Četras

5 - Pieci Piecas

6 - Seši Sešas

7 - Septiņi Septiņas

8 - Astoņi Astoņas

9 - Deviņi Deviņas

10 - Desmit

11 - Vienpadsmit

12 - Divpadsmit (pronou. Diupadsmit)

13 - Trīspadsmit

14 - Četrpadsmit ( If you cant pronounce clusters of words you can pronounce it as četropadsmit most people pronounce it like this)

15 - Piecpadsmit

16 - Sešpadsmit

17 - Septiņpadsmit

18 - Astoņpadsmit

19 - Deviņpadsmit

20 - Divdesmit (pronou. Diudesmit)

Now you can count up to 20 in Latvian

VOCABULARY

Now I will teach you some vocabulary so you can show off your verb skills

Grāmata (F) - Book : Es lasu grāmatu (I read a book).
Please notice that -LASĪT- requires the accusative case to be gramatically correct.

Meitene (F) - Girl : Viņa ir meitene (She is a girl)

Puisis (M) - Boy : Tu esi puisis (You are a boy)

Skola (F) - School : Viņi iet uz skolu (They go to school)
Please notice that -IET- also requires accusative.

Ēdiens (M) - Food : Es ēdu ēdienu (I eat food)
The verb -ĒST- also requires accusative

I hope that you enjoyed this lesson of Latvian with me. I will most likely be posting a new lesson every two days but this is just temporary due to school, with the workload being generally small at the moment.By the way, if you would like the pronounciation of these words you can go on to forvo.com and write a latvian word in the search bar to hear its pronounciation and please do not listen to the pronounciation on google translate!

Atā un visu labu!
Please Comment, Thumbs up or leave a lingot :)

[RadioMedicus]

Thank you very much, it's so interesting ^^ Es mīlu latviešu valodu! :)) I can read aloud Latvian texts and I often listen to the Latvijas Radio, but my grammar isn't very good yet. There aren't many grammar books of the Latvian language in Russia. :( Sorry for my mistakes :)

[Verner5]

Theres absolutely no mistakes so dont excuse yourself! I wish you luck with learning Latvian!! And thank you for replying!

[RadioMedicus]

Sirsnīgi pateicos!

[Verner5]

Lūdzu!! :)

[Namejs]

Very well done! The only think is that maybe you could find some way to show if the letter e is flat or not, cause in most your given examples here it is flat. It sucks that we don't use the same letter as Finns and Estonians for that. They just simply use ä :D

[Verner5]

I didnt even know we had a flat e or regular e !! My life is ruined :')

[Namejs]

Esmu and Esi ,first letter sounds very different ,doesn't it? :D

[Verner5]

I pronounce them them almost the same but the e in -esi- a little bit softer

[Namejs]

But anyway, i guess for beginners it doesn't matter so much. :)

[PolyglotCiro]

It's interesting also because has masculine and femenine like Spanish! thanks for the course!

[Verner5]

Yes we do ! We also have dual numbers (partially) and anyways no problem!

[PolyglotCiro]

I recommend you when you made 10 lessons, you can make a post with the links of all your lessons!

[Verner5]

Yeah I was planning for that :) Thanks anyways !

[PolyglotCiro]

You're welcme anyways!

[FinnDavis2]

This course is very useful! One question, though: is the "ie" vowel group a diphthong with its own pronunciation, or are the letters pronounced individually?

[Vittorio_D]

diphthong

[JennieHall3]

Paldies par stundu. I lived and worked in Talsi, Latvia for four years and now speak what my friends call "Kolkasgrags." I feel like I should improve my grammar.

[deactivated user]

Paldies Tev!