Country Latvia

[Predator]

There are so many cool languages, why not to add another one. Latvian is my native language so it will be fun to know your opinions.

Latvian as an official language was formed only during the middle of 19th century. It represents the branch of Balts languages and there have only two languages remained in this branch - Latvian and Lithuanian. The third is a dead language Prusian.

Latvian is very easy language to pronounce as it has been directly adapted from Latin. Unlike French or English, Latvian is pronounced just as it's written. The hard thing is the grammar. Nouns have seven declinations and conjugation of verbs is as hard as in French.

Knowing the first question already, here are basic expressions:

Hello - Sveiks
How are you? - Kā tev iet?
Have fun - Izpriecājies
Thank you - Paldies
Welcome - Laipni lūdzu
Good morning - Labrīt
Good evening - Labvakar
Goodnite (when going to sleep) - Arlabunakti
Cool - Forši

Enjoy!!

For overall info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_language is a good reference.

 

[ShgnLW]

Re: Latvian Language

Nice I have a strange hobby: What is Hello and Goodbye in different languages. I've got a lot of languages (even very strange languages) but I haven't got Latvian yet...

So: Hello - Sveiks. Goodbye - ??? What is goodbye in latvian?

Oh yeah ,started to add more words to my hobby:

What is in latvian:
sex:
Asshole:
Bitch:
If you think a woman is very nice (like: hotshot):

 

[Predator]

Re: Latvian Language

Well...

Goodbye can be told several ways:
> Uz redzēšanos - See you later
> Visu labu - Let all be well
> Ardievu - Godspeed

Concerning those other words:
Sex - sekss
Asshole - dirsa
Bitch - kuce
Hotshot - beibe, zaķis(rabit)
Another classical term for beauty is "Meitene zeltene" meaning golden haired beautifull girl

 

[Miso]

Re: Latvian Language

... Nouns have seven declinations...

Could you give us an example of a (simple) word declinated? Perhaps with a bit explanation about every declination form?

Paldies!

 

[Predator]

Re: Latvian Language

Well for example, let's take a word "Knight" - "Bruņinieks"

Nominative - What? - Bruņinieks - Knight
Dative - For whoom? - Bruņiniekam - For the Knight
Genetive - Possesing form - Bruņinieka - Knight's
Acusative - Who? - Bruņinieku - Knight (ex. I'm reading about Knight.)
Instrumental - With Who? - Ar Bruņinieku - With Knight
Locative - Where? - Bruņiniekā - Inside Knight
Vocative - Declination of turning to, calling - Bruņiniek! - (ex. Yo, Knight, sorry for using you.)

English and many other languages are using additional words. You can see that in the example.
That makes foreigners it harder to learn these things, but it's easy for natives and when you get used to it.
It would be interesting to you Miso, that Latvian has quite many words of german orgin because of historical issues.

 

[Gold Knight]

Re: Latvian Language

Well, this Bruņinieks approves this thread

Good work.

 

[Predator]

Re: Latvian Language

Well, this Bruņinieks approves this thread

Good work.

Completely your nick would be "Zelta Bruņinieks".

For more fun I'll translate what you just said.

Nu tad, šis Bruņinieks atzīst šo sadaļu.
Labs darbs.

(did you see how "this" changes in the sentence, showing a good example)