Colloquial Latvian THE COLLOQUIAL SERIES Series Adviser: Gary King The following languages are available in the Colloquial series: Afrikaans German Portuguese of Brazil Albanian Greek Romanian Amharic Gujarati Russian Arabic (Levantine) Hausa (forthcoming) Scottish Gaelic Arabic of Egypt Hebrew Serbian Arabic of the Gulf Hindi Slovak Basque Hungarian Slovene Bengali Icelandic Somali Breton Indonesian Spanish Bulgarian Irish Spanish of LatinAmerica Cambodian Italian Swahili Cantonese Japanese Swedish Catalan Korean Tamil Chinese Latvian Thai Croatian Lithuanian Turkish Czech Malay Ukrainian Danish Mongolian Urdu Dutch Norwegian Vietnamese English Panjabi Welsh Estonian Persian Yoruba Finnish Polish Zulu (forthcoming) French Portuguese COLLOQUIAL2s series: The Next Step in Language Learning Chinese German (forthcoming) Russian Dutch Italian Spanish French Portuguese of Brazil Spanish of Latin America All these Colloquials are available in book & CD packs, or separately. You can order them through your bookseller or via our website www.routledge.com. Colloquial Latvian The Complete Course for Beginners Dace Prauli.v and Christopher Moseley First published 1996 by Routledge This second edition published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1996 Christopher Moseley © 2010 Dace Prauli.v and Christopher Moseley Typeset in 9.5/13pt Helvetica by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Prauli.v, Dace, 1951– Colloquial Latvian : the complete course for beginners / Dace Prauli8v and Christopher Moseley. — 2nd ed. p. cm. — (The colloquial series) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Latvian language—Textbooks for foreign speakers—English. 2. Latvian language—Spoken Latvian. I. Moseley, Christopher. II. Title. PG8839.5.E5P73 2009 491′.9382421—dc22 2009004073 ISBN13: 978-0-415-45480-3 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-45807-8 (audio CDs) ISBN13: 978-0-415-45806-1 (pack) ISBN13: 978-0-415-55041-3 (MP3) ISBN13: 978-0-203-87341-0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-1-315-74128-4 (eBook Pack) Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction x How to use this book xii The sounds of Latvian xv Abbreviations xxi 1 Sveiki! 1 Hello! 2 Ledzu brauciet uz...! 16 Please drive to...! 3 Man ir rezervbts numurs 29 I have a reservation 4 Brauciens ar vilcienu 42 Travelling by train 5 Restorana 54 At the restaurant 6 9imene 67 Family 7 Ko tu dari brcvaja laika?7 8 What do you do in your free time? 8 Iesim iepirkties! 91 Let’s go shopping! 9 Iesim uz tirgu! 105 Let’s go to the market! 10 Ka tu pavadi dienas? 119 How do you spend your days? 11 Kur tu biji atva7inajuma? 131 Where did you go on holiday? 12 Kas jums kaiv? 146 What’s wrong with you? vi Contents 13 Jaunais dzcvoklis 160 The new flat 14 Kads vodien bes laiks? 173 What will the weather be like today? 15 Sakari un masu informacijas lcdzek7i 187 Communications and mass media Grammar summary 199 Key to exercises 217 Latvian–English glossary 237 English–Latvian glossary 252 Bibliography 263 Index 265 Please email [email protected] with proof of purchase to obtain access to the supplementary content for this eBook. An access code and instructions will be provided. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Ingrida Bude and the late Margons Bude with- out whose love and support my Latvian would not have survived, and U[is Prauli.v without whom I would not have started to teach Latvian. Dace Prauli.v My thanks go to the late Reinis Mertens. In a way, you could say that he taught me everything I know. He was a great friend to me and a most unusual man. Christopher Moseley Both authors would like to thank Gary King for his helpful comments at the draft stage of this edition, as well as Ligita Grigule whose detailed comments on current usage and methodology have been invaluable. In addition, we would like to thank Annamarie Kino, Sonja van Leeuwen and Anna Callander at Routledge who have nursed this new edition through from start to finish. Claire Trocmé has done an excellent job of going over the manuscript and finding inconsistencies so we are very grateful to her for that. We would also like to thank the following for permission to use photographs and other material: Ce&u Satiksmes DroVCbas Direkcija (Road Traffic Safety Directorate) – www.csdd.lv (road signs, Unit 11) Artem Prokur – www.riga.in (photographs of numbers, Unit 1; tram, Unit 2; station, Unit 4; Laima clock, Unit 7; market, Unit 9; Riga street, Unit 14) Latvijas Banka (the Bank of Latvia) – www.bank.lv (reproductions of bank notes and new euro design, Unit 3) Hotel Naktsmajas – www.nakstmajas.lv (price list, Unit 3) Latvijas TelevCzija (Latvian Television) – www.ltv.lv (logo and TV pro- gramme, Unit 15) Latvijas Dzelzce&V(Latvian Railway) – www.ldz.lv (timetable and prices, Unit 4) viii Acknowledgements Latvia Tourism – www.latviatourism.lv (photographs of Turaidas Pils, Unit 10; Andrupene, Unit 11) Latvian Hotel and Restaurant Association – www.hotel.lv (history of Latvia, Unit 14) NeatkarCgARCta AvCze(Independent Morning Newspaper) – www.nra.lv (logo, Unit 15) Fortuna Travel – www.fortunatravel.lv (itinerary, Unit 11) The magazine Saimniece – www.saimniece.lv (jokes, Unit 12) Dace Prauli.v and Christopher Moseley a vij at L