That last post on
[Genitive](http://learninglatvian.rozentali.com/2010/12/nouns-in-genitive/)
was a doozy, wasn't it? Dative is a bit complicated too, so this time I'm
going to break it up into parts so it's easier to digest (and to write!).
We'll look at the easy stuff this week and the more complex stuff next week.

## The Indirect Object and You

This is the simplest part of the dative, I think. **Indirect objects answer**
the questions, " **to whom?** " and " **for whom?** " which are represented by
_**Kam?**_ in Latvian.

The prepositions **_to_** and **_for_** are handled by the use of the
**_dative_** case. This means that any time you need to indicate _to_ or _for_
, you get to shorten things to just the noun since there's no need to add
words to express it in Latvian.

Sometimes in English, we don't need to use _to_ or _for_ when we have an
indirect object. Wikipedia notes that these are called non-prepositional
objects. Latvian pretty much only seems to use non-prepositional objects for
its indirect objects.

Es pirkšu krējumu kaķim :: I shall buy cream for the cat.

Kam es pirkšu? -- Kaķim. :: For whom shall I buy [it]? -- The cat.

Note that the answer, kāķim, agrees with the question word, kam. I added the
[it] because in English, it needs a bit more than just relying solely on
context alone.

In English, we generally place the indirect object near the direct object,
right? Not necessarily so in Latvian. Because the language is so flexible on
word order, Latvians will often bump a word to the beginning or end depending
on how they want to place emphasis. Sometimes this can result in the indirect
object starting the sentence. **Always make sure you look at the endings!**

You can often begin translating a noun in dative as to- or for- the noun. If
it doesn't sound quite right, try dropping the preposition. Either way, it
will make sense in context.

The biggest thing to be careful of with the dative is that you don't
mistakenly read or translate an infinitive verb as a noun just because those
start with " _to_ " in English.

> Interestingly, _for example_ is translated directly and, in keeping with the
> lack of a preposition for _for_ , _piemērs_ (example) takes the dative to
> create _piemēram_ or _for example_.

## How to Decline

I find these to be very easy to tell apart from everything else. **Almost all
of the declensions end in -m in either singular or plural.** Only the 4th, 5th
and 6th singular dative do not end in an -m. The **4th and 5th end in a -ai
and -ei** , respectively, which is almost as good. But I admit that the
**6th** always trips me up with its ending of **-ij**!

The endings are as follows:

    
    
    vsk.   1. dekl. | 2. dekl. | 2. dekl. exc. | 3. dekl.
    Kam?      -am   |    -im   |    -im        |   -um 
    
    vsk.   4. dekl. | 5. dekl. | 6. dekl.
    Kam?      -ai   |    -ei   |    -ij
    
    dsk.   1. dekl. | 2. dekl. | 2. dekl. exc. | 3. dekl.
    Kam?     -iem   |    -iem  |     -iem      |   -iem 
    
    dsk.   4. dekl. | 5. dekl. | 6. dekl
    Kam?      -ām   |    -ēm   |    -ūm
    
    Red indicates potential palatalization changes in the preceding consonant.
    

## Prepositions

There are only a **couple of prepositions that take the dative in singular**
as well: _līdz_ (until, up to) and _pa_ (on, during). _Pa_ is difficult, its
nouns can take multiple cases, it's involved in loads of idiomatic
expressions, edge cases… and that's way out of the scope of this post. More on
_pa_ later.

One odd preposition is _priekš_ (before, prior to, for). It's very rarely used
because _pirms_ is replacing it in general usage. The odd thing about it is
that it can also mean _for_ if its noun, when singular, is in genitive.

My husband noted that _priekš_ is commonly found in bad Latvian as an attempt
to create indirect objects. :-) So it's essential that you do not misuse it
this way! **Always remember that indirect objects are usually created using
the dative, not a preposition.**

> There's an idiom that uses _priekš_ : _priekš kaķiem_ , or _for the cats_.
> It indicates that an endeavor is useless or wasted, only good enough "for
> the cats".
>
> A popular English idiom that's similar is "herding cats".

As I've said in the
[Prepositions](http://learninglatvian.rozentali.com/2010/06/prepositions/)
post and the [Genitive](http://learninglatvian.rozentali.com/2010/12/nouns-in-
genitive/) post, **damn near all common Latvian prepositions take the dative
in the plural**.

**There are** **exceptions** , most notably **ar** , but for now, you can
fairly safely figure that almost all of the prepositions you will use as a
beginner will take the dative when plural.

_  

## To be continued…

_

Next time, we'll look at the Latvian construction for _to have_. That is one
of the _most essential_ parts of Latvian to learn as a beginner. It's also
kinda twisty, at least to me. It took me a while to grok this one fully and
some of it still throws me.