Latvian Articles

Articles in English

English has two types of articles:

the definite article: the
the indefinite article: a/an

The different meanings/functions of these two types of articles are evident from the two example sentences below:

I saw the car.
I saw a car.

The first sentence assumes that the hearer knows which car we are talking about: either it's already been mentioned, or you're pointing to it. The second sentence makes absolutely no assumptions about the car. The first case is definite; the second instance is indefinite.

No Articles in Latvian!

However, Latvian has no articles whatsoever. Either of the sentences above could be translated as:

Es redzēju mašīnu.

This makes your life much easier. You can forget about articles altogether.

Note: "Articles" are sometimes called "determiners".

Gotta have it!

What if you're absolutely itching to be definite about some noun? In that case you can use demonstrative adjectives like šis (or šitas) meaning 'this', or tas meaning 'that'.

Example: Es nenopirku šito mašīnu; es nopirku to mašīnu. 'I didn't buy this car; I bought that car.'

Demonstrative Adjectives

The demonstrative adjectives are declined as follows:

	case	'this' masculine	'that' masculine	'this' feminine	'that' feminine
singular	nominative	šis, šitas	tas	šī, šitā	tā
	genitive	šā, šī, šitā	tā	šās, šitās	tās
	dative	šim, šitam	tam	šai, šitai	tai
	accusative	šo, šito	to	šo, šito	to
	locative	šajā, šinī, šai	tajā, tanī, tai	šajā, šinī, šai	tajā, tanī, tai
	vocative	šis, šitas!	tas!	šī, šitā!	tā!
plural	nominative	šie, šitie	tie	šās, šīs, šitās	tās
	genitive	šo, šito	to	šo, šito	to
	dative	šiem, šitiem	tiem	šām, šitām	tām
	accusative	šos, šitos	tos	šīs, šitās	tās
	locative	šajos, šinīs, šais	tajos, tanīs, tais	šajās, šinīs, šais	tajās, tanīs, tais
	vocative	šie, šitie!	tie!	šās, šīs, šitās!	tās!

The Role of Adjectives

Finally, note that if the noun is modified by an adjective, the adjective comes in both definite and indefinite forms. Thus, in a way, the adjective takes over this function of articles. For more information on this, see the section on Definite vs. Indefinite Adjectives.