The Latvian language belongs to the balto-slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is therefore totally different to Estonian (which is a Finno-Ugric language), but rather close to Lithuanian (but locals say they can’t understand each other fully without learning the other language). It is spoken by around 1.7 million people.
| English | Latvian |
| yes | jā |
| no | nē |
| Hello! | Sveiks! |
| Good day! | Labadien! |
| Good evening! | Labvakar! |
| Good bye! | Uz redzēšanos! |
| Sorry | piekrītu |
| left | pa kreisi |
| right | pa labi |
| Thank you! | Pateikties! |
During Soviet reign the Latvian language nearly became a minority language in Latvia because of massive Russian immigration. After 1991 measures where taken to give Latvian more importance but still Russian is often spoken in the country.
| Number | Latvian |
| 1 | viens |
| 2 | divi |
| 3 | trīs |
| 4 | četri |
| 5 | pieci |
| 6 | seši |
| 7 | septiņi |
| 8 | astoņi |
| 9 | deviņi |
| 10 | desmit |
Even if Latvia isn’t such a large country there are three major dialects: Lībiskais dialekts, Vidus dialekts and Augšzemnieku dialekts. They can be clearly assigned to three different regions of the country.
| English | Latvian |
| Monday | pirmdiena |
| Tuesday | otrdiena |
| Wednesday | trešdiena |
| Thursday | ceturtdiena |
| Friday | piektdiena |
| Saturday | sestdiena |
| Sunday | svētdiena |
Rīga
Latvia
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