Learn Latvian Through Topics You Actually Care About

LingoBear creates short Latvian passages on topics you choose. Tap any word for an instant English translation and build your vocabulary as you read. Baltic language, one of two surviving with Lithuanian, 33-letter Latin alphabet with macrons (ā, ē, ī, ū) and cedillas (ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ), seven cases, ~1.5M speakers.

Tap any word for instant translation

Every word in your Latvian reading passage is clickable. Get English translations and grammar help — useful for parsing case endings on nouns and verbs.

Read about topics you choose

Type any topic and LingoBear generates a fresh Latvian reading passage — from Riga Jugendstil architecture to Līgo celebrations.

What is Latvian and what family does it belong to?

Latvian (latviešu valoda) is, with Lithuanian, one of the two surviving Baltic languages of the Indo-European family. About 1.5 million people speak it, almost all in Latvia. Baltic languages are not Slavic, although geography sometimes leads to confusion. Latvian preserves several archaic Indo-European features (such as a pitch accent in standard speech) but is grammatically more modernised than Lithuanian.

What grammar features does Latvian have?

Latvian has seven noun cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, vocative), two grammatical genders, six declension classes, and verbs marked for tense, mood and aspect. Stress almost always falls on the first syllable. The Latin alphabet has 33 letters with macrons over long vowels and cedilla-like diacritics on palatalised consonants. LingoBear lets you see these in real text.