Hi,
Been living in Latvia (Liepaja) since June, my wife is Latvian and our children are bi-lingual. I have been coming to Latvia for the last 15 years, but we remained firmly settled in London.
Finally my wife yearned for home and I thought "why not". I love it here and still have the back-up of a business in England, this means I commute a lot which can be tough.
My biggest problem is learning the language, in the past we never stayed for long enough but now I want to get the hang of it. I have basic knowledge and can get by in shops, bars etc but I am nowhere near conversational.
What I need is lessons but they are non-existent down here in Liepaja, can anyone recommend books, CD's etc. There are is fair choice on the interweb but I want to start off with something useful and not spend too much time trying one course after another.
Visu labu
Steve
Language Books
Hi Steve and welcome to Expat.com!
Hope that other members will help you soon.
Harmonie.
Hi Steve!
I'm new to this forum but I'm in a similar situation with regards to learning Latvian, although you're clearly more advanced than I am! I'll be proposing to my girlfriend over the Christmas period and plan to move out to Riga some time next year so I'd love to try and get and good grasp of the language. Anyhow, just thought I'd add support to your post and state that I too would sincerely appreciate it if anyone could recommend some good learning materials!
Oh, and best of luck with your move!
OK guys, here is some help:
"Latvian" from the "teach yourself" series: This is a good comprehenive book from a native speaker. It has a good introduction with lot's of simple words to learn, and a complete grammar collection, with quick notes at the back for things liek conjugation. You can buy the book on it's own, or with the accompanying audio discs.
The real problem is that learning a new langage is a personal thing, and is different for everybody. I have two other books that you might find interesting. It is also relatively easy to find a personal tutor here in Rīga.
There use to be a good on-line government related site, that had a few pages of LV language instructions. I can't find it now, but I will take a look later when I can.
If you guys like, we can meet up, and you can take a look at the books. We can even try to make it a periodic event, and try to make it around in public.
Another thing you can do is to try to watch the local news, which offers subtitles (LV) for hearing impaired.
An interesting challenge would be to search for the short poems that are a cultural heritage of the country. I've forgotten what they are called, but I can get my hands on a book of them. They are a short formula poem, similar to a haiku, but not necessarily with the emphasis on metaphysics.
Hi All
I went out and bought the Teach Yourself Complete Latvian book about 10 days ago. It isn't to bad and the CD's are handy for driving etc. I never was language savvy at school and I've spent my life in Engineering so learning a new language is tricky.
There are lots of basic conversation examples on the CD which you can try to get the gist of, as I'm generally surrounded by Latvians I want to recognise every other word instead of picking out one word in ten.
On the CD they speak slowly which means you can pick out more words and get the gist easier, my aim is not to have my kids laugh at me when I try to speak Latvian. I think I impressed my wife with my new found vocabulary whilst on Skype this evening, mind you she might have just been sparing my feelings.
Jaxxed, I'm currently in England, coincidently my wife is in Riga this weekend for the independence celebrations but I won't be driving back over to Liepaja till next weekend.
I think we will be up to Riga over the weekend of 1st/2nd, I would happily meet up then, are you based around the centrs?
Visu labu
Steve
