Knowledge of Latvian language is essential in most jobs. Some permits are required, depending on your home country. It is easier for EU citizens. The average salary is about â¬400-500 per month, but it varies greatly depending on the area of activity.
Some Latvian phrases will be admired by locals, such as Paldies Thank you. Latvian is spoken natively by more than half of Liepajas population and is the only official language. All written signs and labels are mostly in Latvian. However, you will also hear Russian in the streets of Liepaja, which is by far the most widespread minority language since the Soviet times, when lots of Russians immigrated into Latvia`s main cities, including Liepaja, to work in industries. These immigrants and their next generations form a large percentage of population of all biggest cities in Latvia. In summer there are many German tourists and German can be heard in most touristic areas. Latvians, especially younger generations, speak good English. The Latvian language belongs to the Baltic language group of Indo-European languages and its only closest relative is Lithuanian, but it is very different anyway, so most likely Latvian will sound completely foreign for you and it is hard to guess what written words mean, even if Latvian uses Latin alphabet, just like English. However, some words are borrowed from other languages and it is not hard to understand that Restorans means Restaurant, but what about Veikals? It means Shop. The language has complicated grammar, the most complex being usage of verb prefixes and suffixes, which can change the meaning completely, as well as many kinds of participles majority of which do not have equivalent in English. The pronunciation is more or less easy; however there are some complicated rules for some letters like e and o, and any foreigner trying to speak Latvian has an accent, because it is really hard to speak perfect Latvian. In Latvian, there are three pitch tones and sometimes the meaning of the word changes if you change the tone, e.g. loks can mean leek or bow, depending on the pronunciation tone. Zale can mean a hall or grass, again depends on the tone you use. The easiest part is the stress, which is almost always on the first syllable. Latvian is spoken natively by only 1.5 million people in the whole world, most of them, of course in Latvia, and also in Ireland, UK, USA, Russia, Brazil, Australia etc.