Language

Latvian is an Indo-European language (not Slavic) as old as Lithuanian. It has six declensions and a lot of funny accents. Although the official language is Latvian, you will easily get around with a command of Russian, as half of the population of Riga is Russian-speaking, and most Latvians do understand Russian. They will, however, avoid it, except to swear, because Russians have more colourful curses than Latvians. Latvians also reshape foreign names to fit their language and add an ‘s’ to the end of all male names, i.e. Baraks Obama and Gordons Brauns. Females will get an ‘a’ or an ‘e’ on the end, as with pop star, Britnija Spīrsa. But our favourite is still Sids Višess. Hilarious!

Do you speak English, German, Russian?

Vai jūs runājat angliski, vāciski, krieviski?

I speak English, German, Russian.

Es runāju angliski, vāciski, krieviski.

Where is the nearest shop, hotel, restaurant, café, bar, toilet?

Kur atrodas tuvākais veikals, viesnīca, restorāns, kafejnīca, bārs, tualete?

What’s your name?    Kā Jūs/tevi sauc?

My name is ...    Mani sauc ...

What time is it?    Cik ir pulkstenis?

How much does this cost?    Cik tas maksā?

This costs too much!    Tas ir par dārgu!

Hello    Labdien!

Hi     Sveiks!

Good morning     Labrīt!   

Good evening    Labvakar!

Goodnight    Arlabunakti!   

Goodbye    Čau! Atā! Uz redzēšanos!

Yes    Jā   

No     Nē   

Cheers!    Priekā!

All the best!    Visu labu!   

Thank you    Paldies!