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Describe It!

Adding some useful words (adjectives) for describing things:

With a few extra descriptive words (adjectives) you can start to drop a little Latvian phrase here and there at the next social function.

Adjectives are made up of the ROOT of the word and the ENDING. The root of the word stays the same and the ending changes depending whether the thing you are describing (noun) is femin. or masc., singular or plural. (The ending will also change depending on the "case" of the noun, but we won't look at that yet. For those who are interested, we are only considering the "nominative"case at the present time.)

To understand this, lets look at an example: the words garšīgs (tasty, delicious)

The ROOT of the word is "garšīg".
The ENDING "s" is used when describing masc. singular. nouns (garšīgs ābols = delicious apple).
The ENDING i is used when describing mascc. plural nouns (garšīgi āboli).

The ENDING a is used for femin. singular nouns (garšīga kūka = delicious cake) and as is used for femin. plural nouns (garšīgas kūkas = delicious cakes).

The adjective endings are summarized in the following table (Nominative case only):

  Feminine Masculine
Singular

a

s
Plural

as

i
Working through the samples in the next section will help clarify how this works.