First-Year Latvian, taught by Kārlis Vērdiņš
Class meets in person Mondays & Wednesdays, 9:00-10:20 am
Mary Gates Hall 291
Students enrolled in the 5-credit LATV 101 section will meet online on Fridays
(students in the 3-credit LATV 111 section may attend online Friday meetings for optional review+extra credit)
Learning a foreign language and culture takes time,
patience and persistence,
and lots of courage.
AND it is fun! 😊
Learning Objectives
This course aims to build basic skills in the Latvian language (listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation),
and cultural competence in Latvian geography, history, films, music, and art
The first quarter will focus on...
- Understanding basic vocabulary (about 500 most commonly used words);
- Understanding how meanings of words change when their endings change;
- Using cutting-edge digital tools to transcribe, translate and generate Latvian texts;
- And gathering useful facts about Latvia and Latviians, a culturally rich, digitally-savvy, politically powerful people.
This class satisfies the Arts & Humanities distribution requirement: Learning a language includes learning about the people who speak it, and the history and culture they share.
The Plan:
- The class meets in person two times per week, and online once per week
- Written exercises, practiced in class and due on the following day;
- In-class and online quizzes (and the final exam) will check what you remember.
Grades:
Grading for the 3-credit course (LATV 111) focuses on comprehension skills (listening, reading, grammar).
Grading for the 5-credit course (LATV 101) includes comprehension, plus production skills (speaking and writing).
- In-class participation & problem solving (25%),
- Homework exercises (25%)
- Weekly quizzes (25%),
- Final Examination (10%)
- Weekly online discussions (in English) about culture and current events in Latvia (15%)
Note:
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/Links to an external site.).
- Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/Links to an external site.).