This site provides Latvian Language learning materials and various resources/information for using Latvian on your computer.

About Learning Latvian Online

Learning Latvian Online is a part of a project to develop Latvian multimedia materials that provide:

a fun, intimidation free environment for learning and practicing Latvian.
an opportunity to HEAR the language (essential for Latvian since pronunciation can change the meaning)
practical vocabulary and situations
explanations in English for English speaking adults/kids
the ability to learn on your own (many people are isolated from other Latvian speaking people) and learn at your own pace

This Web-site:

This is a starting point for anyone starting to learn Latvian. Since the Latvian language uses several characters not found in the basic North American character sets, the first sections of this site use graphics in place of these specially marked characters. Other sections require that you have some Latvian fonts installed on your computer.

Brief History:

In the winter of ’95, we began researching material and developing preliminary content for our multimedia projects. We wanted to find out if there was any interested in such material so we sent out a newsletter explaining our ideas and asked for feedback and ideas. A web-site was also set-up for the same purpose.
Thank-you for all the feedback and ideas! Due to the volume of mail that we receive, we regret that we were not able to respond to each e-mail and letter. Thank-you, again, for taking the time to share your ideas and comments.

Based on your feedback and suggestions, the projects have changed somewhat since our initial start. Your feedback indicated that approximately half the respondents are using the MAC platform. A few notes about the people who indicated an interest in learning Latvian:

A large percentage are not of Latvian decent. They wish to learn Latvian for travel, have a spouse who speaks Latvian, or just enjoy learning languages.
Of Latvian decent but never learned the language, or have since forgotten it
Have small children and wish to pass on the language on to their children.

Our Directions:

With a 50/50 split between end -user platforms, selecting a platform has been a difficult decision. (Cross-platform products are a little cost prohibitive at this time.) We have decided to provide our initial programs on the PC platform and to begin converting material to better address these cross-platform needs.

This web-site is also intended to address this cross-platform issue immediately. (We are using "Intranet" technology on a distributed media. In other words, write custom "Web applications" that can be run in a browser, in addition to platform specific software.)

This site is sponsored by:

Interactive Education

Codefusion Communications Inc.

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