Latvian Numbers And Counting — An Easy #1 Guide

5 min readAug 20, 2021

Original blog post: https://ling-app.com/lv/latvian-numbers-and-counting/

Do you want to know how to pronounce a contact number in the Latvian language? You may need to learn Latvian numbers and counting up to 9 at least.

In this blog post, I will provide the written pronunciation of expressing numbers in Latvian. Thus, we can quickly and practically demonstrate the correct way to tell you the big Latvian numbers and counting quickly.

Latvian Numbers And Counting Rules

Cardinal Numbers And Ordinal Numbers

Latvian cardinal numbers relate to counting numbers because they represent quantities. For example, she can speak two languages. On the other hand, ordinal numbers indicate the order and level of things: Her first language is English. The following examples use numbers in different ways and positions to demonstrate their performance in sentences.

List Of Cardinal Numbers

List Of Ordinal Numbers

Latvian ordinal numbers indicate the order of things in a set: first, second, third, etc. Ordinal numbers do not indicate quantity. They only show position or rank. Below is a list of cardinal and ordinal numbers in Latvian. Memorizing and learning to pronounce this table will help you add essential and valuable words to the Latvian vocabulary.

Cardinals and ordinal numbers play a significant role in the Latvian language. When you have finished practicing the Latvian number, you may want to check the other Latvian lessons here:

Now that you have the essence of the most important numbers, let’s move on to the writing rules for tens, composites, and why not hundreds, thousands, and more.

Numbering Rules

Digits from 0–9 have two forms: a feminine form and a masculine one. As for feminine numbers, they are: 0 [nulle], 1 [viena], 2 [divas], 3 [trīs], 4 [četras], 5 [piecas], 6 [sešas], 7 [septiņas], 8 [astoņas], and 9 [deviņas]. Masculine numbers are: 0 [nulle], 1 [viens], 2 [divi], 3 [trīs], 4 [četri], 5 [pieci], 6 [seši], 7 [septiņi], 8 [astoņi], and 9 [deviņi].
From ten (desmit) up, there is only one gender, and the following noun is set to genitive always. The noun rests subject to declension, but for numbers between 10 and 19, and simple tens like 10, 20, 30, (60 sešdesmit, 70 septiņdesmit, 80 astoņdesmit, 90 deviņdesmit), etc.
Cardinal numbers, from eleven to nineteen, ends with -padsmit, meaning on ten, and begins with the root of the digit: 11 [vienpadsmit], 12 [divpadsmit], 13 [trīspadsmit], 14 [četrpadsmit], 15 [piecpadsmit], 16 [sešpadsmit], 17 [septiņpadsmit], 18 [astoņpadsmit], and 19 [deviņpadsmit].
Tens end with -desmit (ten) preceded by the ten digit, except for ten itself: desmit [10], deviņdesmit [90], astoņdesmit [80], septiņdesmit [70], sešdesmit [60], piecdesmit [50], četrdesmit [40], trīsdesmit [30], and divdesmit [20].
Hundreds are made by placing the word for hundred (simt) with no space after the multiplier unit root, with the exclusion of one hundred itself: 100 [simts] (note the -s at the end), 200 [divsimt], 300 [trīssimt], 400 [četrsimt], 500 [piecsimt]…
Latvians use a short-scale system as English to create large numbers: each name of a number greater than one million is a thousand times larger than the previous one. Thus, we have miljons (one million), miljards (one billion), triljons (one trillion), kvadriljons (one patrilion) …
Scale words from thousands upwards must be set in the genitive when followed by a number, like any other noun (for example, septiņi miljardu [7 billion], trīs miljonu [3 million], desmit tūkstošu [10,000]).

Important Thing To Remember About Latvian Numbers And Counting

An essential thing to spot is that Latvians use commas for decimal notation rather than points. So, for example, the water bottle label could read 1,6 L, while in America, we would see 1.6 L on labels. Further, costs are written similarly: the same bottle of water could cost 0,95 Ls.

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