Module 04 · Pronouns · Vietniekvārdi · Level A1
Kas or ko? Interrogative pronouns
Kas vai ko?
One of the first places learners get stuck: English "who/what" barely changes form, so it's easy to miss that Latvian uses genuinely different forms of the one word kas depending on its role in the sentence.
| Case | kas | Question | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| N | kas | who? what? | Kas tas ir? Kas tu esi? |
| Ģ | kā | of what/whom? whose? | Kā tev trūkst? Kā grāmata tā ir? |
| D | kam | to whom? to what? | Kam tu zvani? Kam tas ir? |
| A | ko | whom? what? | Ko tu dari? Ko tu redzi? |
| I | ar ko | with whom/what? | Ar ko tu brauc? Ar ko tu runā? |
| L | kur (place) / kajā | where? in what? | Kur tu dzīvo? |
The main rule
- Kas — when asking about the subject, or after ir ("is"): Kas tas ir? (What is this?) Kas notika? (What happened?) Kas tur stāv? (Who's standing there?)
- Ko — when asking about the object of the action: Ko tu dari? (What are you doing?) Ko tu gribi? (What do you want?) Ko tu ēd? (What are you eating?)
A quick test: if the question could be phrased as "what does X" (X is the doer) — use kas; if it's "does what to X" (X is the thing acted on) — use ko.
Kā — two different words
kā with a long ā is both the genitive "of what/whose" and the adverb "how": Kā tev iet? (How are you?), Kā tevi sauc? (What's your name? — literally "how are you called?"). Context always sorts them out.
Other interrogatives
kurš / kura (which), kāds / kāda (what kind of), cik (how many/much), kur (where), kad (when), kāpēc / kādēļ (why), cikos (at what time), no kurienes / uz kurieni (from where / to where).
Exercise
Fill in kas or ko: 1) ___ tu lasi? 2) ___ tas ir? 3) ___ tev patīk? 4) ___ tu gribi dzert?
Answers
1) Ko · 2) Kas · 3) Kas (the subject with patīk) · 4) KoOpen the lesson in the trainer — with exercises and a “done” mark →Module test 04