Read Your First Latvian Passage Today

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Auksta diena Rīgā

Šodien Rīgā ir auksta diena.

Today is a cold day in Riga.

Ārā stipri līst lietus.

It is raining hard outside.

Pūš auksts un nepatīkams vējš.

A cold and unpleasant wind is blowing.

Klara stāv autobusa pieturā.

Klara is standing at the bus stop.

Viņa trīc un gaida autobusu.

She is shivering and waiting for the bus.

Klara redz lielu un sausu jumtu.

Klara sees a large and dry roof.

Viņa iet zem sausā jumta.

She goes under the dry roof.

Tur stāv viņas labs draugs Jānis.

Her good friend Jānis is standing there.

Jānis tur rokā sarkanu lietussargu.

Jānis is holding a red umbrella in his hand.

Jānis pamana Klari un smaida.

Jānis notices Klara and smiles.

Jānis saka: labdien, Klara!

Jānis says: hello, Klara!

Klara saka: čau, Jāni!

Klara says: hi, Jānis!

Jānis dod viņai daļu no lietussarga.

Jānis gives her part of the umbrella.

Tagad viņi kopā gaida zem jumta.

Now they are waiting together under the roof.

Aukstais vējš pūš projām.

The cold wind blows away.

Lietus pamazām paliek vājāks.

The rain slowly gets weaker.

Klara redz dzeltenu autobusu tālumā.

Klara sees a yellow bus in the distance.

Liels autobuss nāks jau ļoti drīz.

The big bus will come very soon.

Autobuss apstājas pieturā.

The bus stops at the bus stop.

Tā durvis atveras.

Its doors open.

Klara un Jānis ieiet autobusā.

Klara and Jānis get into the bus.

Autobusā ir silti un mājīgi.

It is warm and cozy in the bus.

Viņi apsēžas pie loga.

They sit down near the window.

Draugi brauks uz siltu māju.

The friends will ride to a warm home.

Klara ir ļoti priecīga.

Klara is very happy.

Quick facts about Latvian

Speakers

About 1.5 million people speak Latvian as a first language (a 2023 figure, as cited by Wikipedia), most of them in Latvia.1

Did you know?

Standard Latvian has fixed initial stress: the first syllable of a word is stressed, with few exceptions.2

The main challenge

Obligation has its own verb form, the debitive mood: man ir jāmācās means "I must study" or "it is necessary for me to study".1

Sources

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_language
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_phonology

About the Latvian language

Language familyIndo-European → Balto-Slavic → Baltic (East Baltic)1
SpeakersAbout 1.5 million native speakers (2023), most of them in Latvia. Many of Latvia’s Russian speakers and other minorities also use it as a second language, but no overall second-language figure is given.1
Primary scriptLatin alphabet of 33 letters: 22 plain and 11 with diacritics, namely macrons for long vowels (ā, ē, ī, ū), carons (č, š, ž) and cedillas for the palatal consonants ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ2
Word order & typologyInflected (fusional), with seven cases, two genders and no articles; definiteness is shown by adjective endings. The basic order is SVO, but word order is relatively free.1
Official statusSole official language of Latvia under the 1999 Official Language Law, and an official language of the European Union since 2004.1,3
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_language
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_orthography
  3. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/languages_en

Latvian reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR)

Stichos levelApproximate framework equivalentReader profile
A0Pre-A1Early Beginner
A1CEFR A1Beginner
A2CEFR A2Elementary
B1CEFR B1Intermediate
B2CEFR B2Upper Intermediate

Stichos levels are modelled on the CEFR. Since 2009 Latvia’s state language proficiency levels have used the same labels: basic (A1, A2), intermediate (B1, B2) and advanced (C1, C2). Cabinet Regulation No. 157 of 8 March 2022 sets the level required for each occupation. This column is a reading guide, not an exam result.

Reference corpora

Latvian corpora are collected at korpuss.lv, the Latvian National Corpora Collection run by the University of Latvia’s Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science with the National Library of Latvia.1

  • LVK2022: The Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian (Līdzsvarotais mūsdienu latviešu valodas tekstu korpuss) holds about 101 million words of text published from 2000 to 2021: 60% periodicals, 10% fiction, 10% scientific writing, and smaller shares of Wikipedia, legal acts, parliamentary transcripts and subtitles.2
  • LaVA learner corpus: Darģis and colleagues (LREC 2022) describe 1,015 essays (about 190,000 tokens) by foreign university students in their first or second semester of Latvian, at A1 and possibly A2, annotated for morphology and errors.3
  • Register: Stichos writes standard, dialect-neutral modern Latvian at every level, with informal tu between friends and formal Jūs (with plural verb agreement) for strangers and official settings.
  1. https://korpuss.lv/
  2. https://korpuss.lv/id/LVK2022
  3. https://aclanthology.org/2022.lrec-1.77/

Readability design principles

Readability research on Latvian is still young. One published attempt:1

  • Eye-movement study: Atvars (Procedia Computer Science, 2017) tracked the eye movements of more than 300 children in grades 1 to 4 reading 15 Latvian texts. Fixation times matched the English Spache formula best (R = 0.74), and the share of hard words was the main driver of difficulty.1
  • Stichos: Stichos controls difficulty with grammar rules and sentence-length limits for each level. A0 sentences stay within five words and use no conjunctions; higher levels unlock conjunctions in a fixed order, starting with un, bet and vai and ending with lai and kaut.
  1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050917301631

Script & grammar scaffolding

  • Tenses: A0 uses only the present (tagadne). A1 adds the simple future (nākotne) for plans; the past (pagātne) waits until A2, which also opens the imperative mood (pavēles izteiksme). Compound tenses arrive at B2.
  • The debitive: Latvian expresses obligation with the debitive mood (vajadzības izteiksme): a jā- verb form with the person in the dative, as in man ir jāmācās (“I must study”). It is held back until B1, together with the conditional (vēlējuma izteiksme).
  • Participles and reported speech: Complex participial clauses (divdabja teicieni) are excluded up to B1; B2 allows basic ones alongside the passive voice. The reported mood (atstāstījuma izteiksme) appears at C1.
  • Imperatives at A1: A0 has no productive imperatives. At A1, commands are limited to five informal ones (skaties, nāc, ņem, pagaidi, sēdies) and fixed formulas such as Lūdzu; requests to staff use a noun phrase plus “please”, as in Vienu kafiju, lūdzu.

Related academic & framework resources

Frequently asked questions

What writing system does Latvian use?
Latin alphabet of 33 letters: 22 plain and 11 with diacritics, namely macrons for long vowels (ā, ē, ī, ū), carons (č, š, ž) and cedillas for the palatal consonants ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ
Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?
Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.
Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?
Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.
Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?
Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.
Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?
Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.
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Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.
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