es / tu / viņš / viņa / mēs / jūs / viņi / viņas

The eight pronouns.

• es: I
• tu: you (one friend, relative or child)
• viņš: he
• viņa: she
• mēs: we
• jūs: you (two or more people, or one person politely)
• viņi: they (men, or a group of men and women)
• viņas: they (only women)

Viņi or viņas. Use viņas only when everyone in the group is female: Līga un Zane? Viņas ir māsas. As soon as one man is in the group, the pronoun is viņi: Jānis un Līga? Viņi ir mājās.

Tu or jūs. Tu is for one friend, relative, child or peer. Jūs is for any group, and it is also the polite way to speak to one stranger, an official or an older person. Polite jūs still takes the plural verb: Vai jūs esat no Latvijas? In letters and emails, the polite pronoun is often written with a capital letter: Jūs. See informal tu and polite jūs.

Each pronoun has its own verb form. The verb būt shows it clearly: es esmu, tu esi, viņš ir, mēs esam, jūs esat, viņi ir. The he, she and they forms of a verb are always the same (viņa strādā, viņas strādā), so the third-person pronoun is usually kept. Es, tu, mēs and jūs are often left out, because the verb ending already says who: Esmu no Rīgas. See leaving out subject pronouns.

No word for "it". Viņš and viņa normally mean people, and sometimes animals. For a thing, Latvian usually uses the pointing words tas (masculine) and tā (feminine), chosen by the noun's gender: Kur ir mana soma? Tā ir tur. See this and that.

Small letter. Unlike English "I", es is written with a small letter unless it starts the sentence: Anna un es.

Other forms. The pronouns change their endings for case: mani, tevi (me, you) in object pronouns and man, tev (to me, to you) in dative pronouns. Two forms do double duty: viņa is also "his" and viņas is also "her", as in viņa māja (his house).