Knowing how to express time is a core skill when learning any new language.

You’ll need this vocabulary to schedule meetings, catch public transport, or make weekend plans in Latvia.

In Latvian, telling time relies on a few specific nouns and basic numbers.

I’ll show you exactly how to say the time, the days of the week, and the months of the year.

Telling time in Latvian

Asking for the time usually involves the word pulkstenis, which means “clock” or “watch”.

To ask for the current time, you simply ask “how much is the clock?”.

Latvians use the 24-hour clock for official schedules like trains, buses, and flights.

In casual daily conversation, they almost always use the 12-hour clock.

When stating the exact hour, use the word pulkstenis (or the shortened pulkstens) followed by the number.

For fractions of an hour, Latvian uses specific prepositions.

You’ll use pāri (past), bez (without / to), and pus (half).

Here’s a breakdown of how to express different minutes around the hour.

Note that when expressing “half past”, Latvians look ahead to the next hour.

Saying pusvienpadsmit literally means you’re halfway to eleven o’clock.

Days of the week

The days of the week in Latvian are quite easy to memorize.

Except for Sunday, they’re formed by combining an ordinal number with the word diena (day).

For example, Monday literally translates to “first day” (pirmā + diena).

A crucial rule to remember is that days of the week aren’t capitalized in Latvian.

To say that something happens on a specific day, you change the ending to the locative case.

This usually means changing the final “a” to a long “ā”.

Months of the year

The Latvian months sound very similar to their English equivalents.

This is because they share the same historical roots.

Just like the days of the week, months are written entirely in lowercase letters.

When you want to say something happens in a specific month, you must use the locative case.

For months ending in “-s”, you change the ending to a long “-ā”.

For months ending in “-is”, you change the ending to a long “-ī”.

Useful time phrases

To talk about time fluently, you’ll need a few more basic adverbs.

Words like today, tomorrow, and yesterday are essential for everyday conversations.

Here are the most common time-related adverbs in Latvian.

You can combine these adverbs with the days or times you just learned to make complete sentences.