Latvian adjectives change their endings to match the nouns they describe.

This matching process is called adjective agreement.

You must align the adjective with the noun in three specific ways.

These three ways are gender, number, and case.

Understanding this rule is essential for building correct sentences in Latvian.

The three rules of adjective agreement

In English, adjectives never change their form.

A “big” house uses the exact same word as “big” cars.

Latvian adjectives work very differently.

They act as mirrors for the nouns they attach to.

If a noun changes its form, the adjective attached to it must undergo the exact same change.

Matching gender in Latvian

Latvian has two grammatical genders for nouns.

These are masculine and feminine.

If you use a masculine noun, your adjective must use a masculine ending.

If you use a feminine noun, your adjective must use a feminine ending.

Let’s look at the adjective liels, which means “big”.

The word for boy (zēns) is masculine.

The word for girl (meitene) is feminine.

Notice how the ending of the adjective changes from -s to -a just to match the gender of the noun.

Matching number in Latvian

Number simply refers to whether a word is singular or plural.

When a noun becomes plural, the adjective describing it must also become plural.

We’ll use the same examples from above to show this shift.

To say “big boys”, both words require plural masculine endings.

To say “big girls”, both words take plural feminine endings.

Matching case in Latvian

Latvian uses grammatical cases to show what role a word plays in a sentence.

There are seven cases in Latvian.

When a noun changes its case, the adjective must match that specific case.

If a noun is the direct object of a sentence, it takes the accusative case.

Here, zēns becomes zēnu because it’s the object being seen.

The adjective liels must also change to lielu to match this accusative form.

If we want to say that something belongs to the big boy, we use the genitive case.

Both the adjective and the noun drop their standard endings and take the genitive -a ending.

Indefinite vs definite endings

Latvian doesn’t have dedicated words for “a” or “the” like English does.

Instead, Latvian uses the adjective endings to show this difference.

Indefinite endings are used when you’re talking about “a” thing.

Definite endings are used when you’re talking about “the” specific thing.

Here’s an HTML table showing how the adjective jauns (new) changes in the basic nominative case based on gender and definiteness.

When you want to describe a new car in general, you use the indefinite ending.

When you want to talk about the specific new car you just bought, you use the definite ending.

This definite ending system applies across all genders, numbers, and cases in Latvian.

You must memorize both sets of endings to accurately describe nouns in your sentences.