We are officially 6 months into our formal Latvian language study. This is what takes up the bulk of our time these days, so I thought I would share a little bit more about what that looks like for us on a daily basis. First of all, I’ll start by saying that this book we bought before we moved to Latvia was false advertising. It is NOT possible to learn Latvian in three months, but we sure are trying!

4-5 mornings per week, after dropping the girls off at their three different schools, Luke and I have a private tutor who comes to our home. She is very experienced as a private language tutor, but we are her first English-speaking students attempting to learn Latvian. She has taught Latvian to Russians and Russian to Latvians, but we are a new challenge for her! She spent four years in the States, though, and her English is very good (certainly good enough to help us when we are stuck!). So we spend several hours each morning talking, listening, reading, writing, and being corrected 🙂

In the afternoons, we spend several hours on the homework that our tutor gives us. It includes worksheets sometimes, but more often she gives us reading, writing, or translation assignments. Lately we’ve been working on reading popular Latvian magazine articles and listing new vocabulary, and translating English children’s books into Latvian.

In our “spare” time, we try as much as possible to spend time using and listening to Latvian in real life. We have made several relationships with people in our church and in our apartment complex, and try to seek out opportunities to practice our language.

Luke found a great opportunity to work on his Latvian each week at the National Library in Riga. He has been attending a weekly conversation club that meets for three hours every Tuesday. It is comprised of a dozen or more people of all ages and all nationalities who are wanting to learn Latvian. It is led by a Latvian language teacher and it has been invaluable for Luke’s language practice. He has also had the opportunity to build relationships with some of the class members and even share the gospel with them and the reason that we are here.

And of course, the girls all have wonderful opportunities to work on their language skills each day at school. They are all thriving, in language, but also in building friendships, and we are so grateful for God’s guidance for each of them. Here are some fun pictures of each of them at school with some recent art projects!