Module 01 · Sounds and spelling · Skaņas un rakstība · Level A1

Alphabet and Pronunciation

Alfabēts un izruna

The Latvian alphabet has 33 letters. Spelling is largely phonetic, but letter-to-sound correspondence is not absolute: e/ē can be narrow or broad, while o can represent the diphthong [uo] or an [o] sound.

Vowels: short and long

A long vowel (marked with a garumzīme — a small line above it) is held roughly twice as long. This is not stress and not "softness" — it's a distinct sound. English speakers most often trip up right here, because English has no vowel length: they pronounce mācīties as macities, and the word stops being recognizable.

Consonants with diacritics

The letters c are always "ts" (cilvēks), z is always "z" as in zebra (zeme), j is "y" as in yes (jā), v is "v" (vārds).

Diphthongs

ai, au, ei, ie, o, ui are read as a single glide: laiks ("lyayks"), auto, meita, iela ("iela"), ozols. The letter o in native Latvian words is the diphthong "uo" (doma — "dwoma"), while in loanwords it's a plain "o" (opera, telefons).

Stress

Almost always on the first syllable: LAtvija, RĪga, MĀcīties, PILsēta. A handful of exceptions exist, such as paldies (pal-DIES), labdien, labrīt, nekad.

Common mistakes

• Reading e/ē as an English "eh" that glides into a "y" sound. In Latvian it's a pure, clean vowel: es — "ess", not "yess".
• Softening consonants before i/e out of habit (as happens in many other languages). Tikai is pronounced with a hard, unpalatalized "t".
• Ignoring vowel length: mana (my) ≠ māna (deceives) — in English these differences are usually shown by adding a letter or an extra word, not by holding a sound longer, so it takes conscious effort to hear and produce.

Exercise

Read aloud and identify where the long vowel is: māja, skola, dārgs, labs, pilsēta, vēstule, sveiki, paldies.

Open the lesson in the trainer — with exercises and a “done” mark →Module test 01