Colloquial Mongolian

The Complete Course for Beginners

Jantsangiyn Bat-Ireedui, Alan J K Sanders

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317305972
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Colloquial Mongolian is easy to use and completely up to date!

Written by experience teachers of the language, Colloquial Mongolian offers a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Mongolian. No previous knowledge of the language is required.

Features include:

Guide to reading and writing the alphabet

Lively dialogues in true-to-life situations

Concise grammar explanations

A variety of exercises with full answer key, grammar summary, suffix index and two-way glossary

Explanatory notes on Mongolian culture and customs

By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in Mongolian in a broad range of everyday situations.

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

1 Сайн байна уу?

Hello!

In this lesson you will learn:

• Some forms of greeting and saying goodbye

• How to identify yourself

• Various ways of expressing ‘to be’

• Some simple questions and answers

• Personal and possessive pronouns

Dialogue 1 (Audio 1: 2)

Брауныхан Улаанбаатарт
The Browns in Ulan Bator

David Brown, a British businessman, and his wife Julie have arrived at Ulan Bator airport. As they are about to leave the terminal David is approached by Sükh, a Mongolian official he had met once before in London.

СҮх:	Ноён Браун!
Девид:	СҮх ээ! Сайн байна уу?
СҮх:	Сайн. Та сайн байна уу?
Девид:	Сайн байна аа!
СҮх:	Сонин сайхан юу байна?
Девид:	Тайван сайхан байна. Танайхан сайн уу?
СҮх:	Сайн. Энэ хэн бэ?
Девид:	Энэ миний гэргий.
SÜKH:	Mr Brown!
DAVID:	Hey, Sükh! How are you?
SÜKH:	I’m well. How are you?
DAVID:	I’m fine.
SÜKH:	What’s new?
DAVID:	Nothing much. How’s the family?
SÜKH:	Fine! Who’s this?
DAVID:	This is my wife.

Шинэ Yг
Vocabulary

байна	am/is/are	та	you (polite)
бэ/вэ	(interrogative)	тайван	peaceful
гэргий	wife	танайхан	your family
миний	my	уу/уу/юу/юу	(interrogative)
ноён	Mr	хэн	who?
сайн	good, well	энэ	this
сайхан	nice; pretty	ээ(ааУоо)	(emphatic)
соoннн	news

Language points

The article

There is no definite or indefinite article in Mongolian, and in translating Mongolian into English ‘the’ or ‘a’, ‘an’ should be inserted as appropriate, according to context. However, Mongols do use the numeral ‘one’ (нэг) for ‘a’ man or ‘a’ person (нэг хун).

The verb ’to be’

The word байна is the present-future tense form of the verb байх ‘to be’ and means ‘am’, ‘is’ or ‘are’. Like all Mongolian verb forms, байна is invariable for number and person: сайн байна ‘am/is/are well’. Sometimes, however, the verb ‘to be’ is understood. In the dialogue, for example, Sükh asks David: Энэ хэн бэ? ‘this who?’ and David answers: Энэ миний гэргий ‘this my wife’. Similarly one can say: Миний гэргий балл ‘my wife teacher’, etc.

Present-future tense -на

The present-future tense is formed by adding to the verb stem the suffix -на or one of its variants -но, -не, -нэ in keeping with the stem vowel: бай- байна and similarly бол- болно ‘may’, or- огне ‘gives’, ир- ирнэ ‘comes’, буч- бучнэ ‘surrounds’ and so on. The final a in байна is not pronounced. The final vowels in the other examples are spoken between the last two consonants: болно (bolon), вше (ögön) and ирнэ (iren). The short final vowel may be lengthened for emphasis: Байна aa! ‘I/you/they) is/am/are (indeed)!’

Asking questions

Mongolian uses interrogative particles to form questions from statements, for example, yy? in the question Сайн байна уу? (’well is/are?’), where байна has back vowels. The front vowel equivalent is yy? (for back and front vowels, see page 13). Энэ ном уу, дэвтэр үү? ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• The alphabet
• Pronunciation
• 1 Hello!
• 2 A parent's tongue never rests
• 3 Actions speak louder than words
• 4 Nothing ventured, nothing gained
• 5 Never do things by halves
• 6 There's no place like home
• 7 You can lead a horse to water
• 8 Look before you leap
• 9 Having no debt is wealth and no illness happiness
• 10 Heaven helps those who help themselves
• Grammar summary
• Key to exercises
• Mongolian-English vocabulary
• English-Mongolian vocabulary
• Grammar index
• Suffix index
• Bibliography