This is my favorite case, hands down. For one, it is the case I can most
reliably pick out of sentences, so I usually will translate it first. For
another, it's just so darned easy. I love this case!

The **locative case expresses location** -- both **physical location and
location in time** (also known as the _locative of time_ ). It primarily
answers the question _**Kur?**_ or **_Where?_**

## Where?

Simply put, the locative is used any time you want to say **something or
someone is located in somewhere.** If you are _in a car_ , _car_ will be in
locative. If there is water _in the pot_ , _pot_ will be in locative. If you
are _in the field_ , _field_ will be in locative.

Yes, it is that easy. **Locative is location.**

It is incredibly easy to distinguish - singular nouns will end in a macron,
while plural masculine nouns end in -os and plural feminine nouns end with
-ās, -ēs or -īs (which is basically their nominative plural + a macron).

Now what is really, really cool about the locative is that Latvians can refer
to location very quickly and efficiently, while we English-speakers need a few
more words to do it. Like so:

Galds ir istabā. -> The table is in the room.

Latvian cuts that sentence length in half and almost all of that is due to the
fact that **placing a noun in locative represents an entire prepositional
phrase in English.** (In fact, I could imply ir with a -, the sentence would
still be perfectly understandable and it'd be down to two words!)

Here's the other neat thing: because of the locative, **there really isn 't a
need for a prepositional equivalent of _in_ **just to indicate that something
is in that location. If you need to be more specific about position or
relative position, there are prepositions for _inside,_ _on top of_ , _next
to_ , etc., but of course, those do not take the locative.

Now, you might be thinking, "Do I put seasons and time into locative then? Can
I say 'Jāņi ir junijā?'" (Jāņi is in June.) Yes, because that calls for the
_locative of time._

> Yes, junijā is left uncapitalized. Latvians do not consider the names of
> months or days to require capitalization except at the beginning of
> sentences.

## Locative of Time

Locative is used quite a bit when it comes to time and this is probably the
most fiddly bit when it comes to understanding the locative case. **Locative
is also used to answer both _kad_ and _cikos_.**

The exact K-question word for _when_ is _kad_ but _cikos_ is a more specific
way of asking _at what time_ something is to happen. **_Kad_ is used for _time
in a general sense_** , like "today," "next week," or "this winter." **_Cikos_
is used for _time in a specific sense_** , such as "at 2 pm".

Interestingly, either kad or cikos can be used for "in 10 minutes" as it can
imply either _when_ or _at what time_. **Specific is important when it comes
to cikos!** It cannot be used when you're giving a general estimate of when
something will be done, the way we would casually say "in two or three hours"
in English. Well, you can, but it's not a great idea. **Cikos implies a
request for a specific scheduled time.** _This is why it is important to
remember that **cikos translates as "at what time" **rather than "when"._ ****

**With locative and kad, if you would answer "in [time]", then you would use
the locative.**

Kad puses zieda? Vasarā. -> When do flowers bloom? In the summer.

In the example above, you need to use the locative for " _in the summer._ "
(See the _in_? Big clue that you should use the locative to express this.)
Note also that this would be singular - there is only one summer and the
question is quite general, thanks to kad.

**** However, when it comes to more specific time, we use _cikos_ and in this
case the question word has an ending applied. **_Cikos?_ is the locative
plural expression of _Cik?_** and **expects an answer also in the locative
plural.**

**In short, _cikos_ is always plural and refers to a scheduled time, _kad_ can
be singular or plural and can refer to general time.**

Cikos mēs brauksim pie ārstes? Četrpadsmitos. -> At what time will we travel
to the doctor? At 14 (2pm).

In the example above, we see that _četrpadsmitos_ is in the locative plural,
so if we wanted to translate it exactly into an equivalent in English, we'd
wind up with something along the lines of "at 1400 hours" which is how the
American military (and possibly others) would refer to it.

> Pie is used here instead of dative because it is used when you are going
> "to" someone. It isn't a true indirect object.

I'll have to do a post just on time at some point, because there are a lot of
little intricacies in Latvian when it comes to time. More on time in time.

## How to Decline the Locative

The endings are as follows:

    
    
    vsk.   1. dekl. | 2. dekl. | 2. dekl. exc. | 3. dekl.
    Kur?      -ā    |    -ī    |    -ī         |   -ū 
    
    vsk.   4. dekl. | 5. dekl. | 6. dekl.
    Kur?      -ā    |    -ē    |    -ī 
    
    dsk.   1. dekl. | 2. dekl. | 2. dekl. exc. | 3. dekl.
    Kur?      -os   |    -os   |     -os       |   -os 
    
    dsk.   4. dekl. | 5. dekl. | 6. dekl
    Kur?     -ās    |    -ēs   |    -īs 
    
    Red indicates potential palatalization changes.