The Mongolian Conditional: How to Say If Without a Word for It

There is no word for "if"

English conditionals are built around a conjunction. If comes first, the verb that follows is an ordinary verb, and the sentence is recognisable as a condition from its very first syllable.

Mongolian has no such word in the sentences it actually uses. The condition is a suffix, and it goes on the verb of the clause that states the condition:

• Тэр өнөөдөр ирвэл чамтай уулзана.
• he today come-CONV you-COM meet-PRES-FUT
• "If he comes today, he will meet you."

There is nothing in that sentence corresponding to if. The whole conditional meaning is in four letters at the end of ирвэл. Strip them off and you are left with ир–, the stem of ирэх (to come).

This has a consequence that catches English speakers out in listening before it catches them in speaking. In English you know a conditional is coming the moment you hear the first word, and you listen accordingly. In Mongolian you do not find out until the end of the first clause. You have to hold the clause in mind, reach the verb, and only then learn that everything you have just heard was a hypothesis. That is a real listening skill, and it is worth practising deliberately with the recordings.

The four forms

The conditional is one of the ten suffixes that take four shapes according to the vowels of the stem. The complete series and the model paradigm live in one place in this guide, The Four-Form Suffix Table; here are the four shapes on real verbs, which is what you need in order to read:

Note what decides the shape: the vowel of the stem, and nothing else. The final consonant of the stem is irrelevant here — ор– and бос– end in different consonants and take the same –вол, because both have о. This is unlike the dative-locative and unlike the question particles бэ and вэ, where the last consonant is exactly what matters. If you have already met those, keep the two mechanisms apart; the full decision procedure is in Choosing the Right Case Ending: A Decision Tree.

One more form from the method's own sentences is worth having, because it is the verb you will want most often: бай– (to be) gives байвал, as in Би мөнгөтэй байвал авна. "If I have the money, I will buy it." The stem has а, so it takes the а shape. The й on the end of the stem counts for nothing in the choice: й is a consonant, and it is transparent to vowel harmony.

The –б– variant

Alongside –вал you will meet the same suffix beginning with б: –бал, –бол, –бэл, –бөл. The meaning is identical. There is no difference of register, tense or politeness; it is one suffix with two initial consonants.

The method observes that the б form turns up particularly after a stem that ends in л or in в, and gives these:

• эхэл– (to begin) gives эхэлбэл
• дуул– (to sing, to hear) gives дуулбал
• яв– (to go) gives явбал

Two stems in л, one in в. The pattern is easy to see and easy to hear: л plus в and в plus в are both awkward to say, and the language avoids them. But the method stops at "particularly", and does not state this as a rule. This guide does the same. Where the method gives a form, learn the form; do not build –бал onto a new stem on the strength of a pattern that was never promised to hold.

хэрвээ and хэрэв: the optional signpost

Mongolian does have words that mean "if" — хэрвээ, and its shorter form хэрэв — and they go at the head of the conditional clause, where English puts if:

• Хэрвээ бороо орвол, би явахгүй. "If it rains, I shall not go."
• Хэрвээ чи буцаж ирвэл би чамд мөнгө өгнө. "If you come back, I will give you the money."

But they are optional, and the suffix is not. Бороо орвол on its own is already "if it rains". Remove хэрвээ and the sentence still means exactly what it meant; remove –вол and it means nothing at all.

So what is хэрвээ for? It is the signpost. It tells the listener at the start of the clause that a condition is coming, which is precisely the information the suffix withholds until the end — and that is the reason the method gives for it: the word helps whoever is listening.

Do not read "optional" as "rare". Five of the twelve conditional sentences the method prints open with хэрвээ or хэрэв, so the word is thoroughly idiomatic and you should use it. What is not idiomatic is the English speaker's other instinct: to put the word in and let it do the work, leaving the verb alone. In English the whole conditional rests on if. In Mongolian the word carries none of the weight, and a sentence with хэрвээ and no suffix is not a conditional at all.

The conditional has no tense

The conditional form is a converb — one of the forms whose job is to hang a clause onto another clause — and like every converb it says nothing about when anything happens. The time of the sentence is fixed by the verb that closes it, and that verb's tense covers both halves. Look at the two examples again:

• Тэр өнөөдөр ирвэл чамтай уулзана. — уулзана is present-future, so the whole sentence is about what is going to happen.
• Хэрвээ бороо орвол, би явахгүй. — явахгүй is a negative future, so the condition is a future condition.

Nothing in ирвэл or орвол changed between the two. The conditional form of a verb is a single form; there is no past conditional and no future conditional to choose between. What the general behaviour of converbs looks like, and how to tell where one clause stops and the next begins, is set out in Mongolian Converbs: Linking Clauses Without "and", "if", "after".

Word order: condition first

The condition opens the sentence and the main verb closes it. That is the order in every example the method gives, and it is the order to use:

• Чи ирвэл найзтайгаа ир. "If you come, come with your friend."

English can put the condition either first or last — "I shall not go if it rains" is as good as "if it rains I shall not go". Mongolian cannot comfortably do the second, because the converb is not a finite verb and cannot end the sentence. Putting орвол last would leave the sentence with no verb to carry its tense. The condition goes first because the grammar leaves it nowhere else to go.

Notice Чи ирвэл найзтайгаа ир. in particular: the main clause is an imperative, and the bare stem ир closes the sentence. A conditional can head any kind of main clause — statement, question, order — because it commits to nothing itself.

"If" and "when" are the same thing here

This is the adaptation an English speaker has to make consciously, because English makes a distinction that Mongolian simply does not.

In English, "if he comes" and "when he comes" are different claims. The first says you do not know whether he will; the second says you know he will and are talking about the moment. English speakers choose between them without thinking, and the choice carries real information.

Mongolian –вал covers both. The method prints Хэрвээ аавыг ирвэл бид хамт хоол иднэ. and translates it with "if" — "if father comes, we will eat together" — where an English speaker who knew the father was on his way would almost certainly say "when father comes". Reference grammars of Khalkha give exactly that reading for the same suffix wherever the context makes the event certain. Nothing in the Mongolian changes between the two; only the English does. The "when" reading is a reference-grammar observation rather than the method's, and the exercises below do not turn on it.

What this means in practice is that you cannot translate English "when" with one Mongolian form and English "if" with another. You produce the conditional and let the context do the work. In the other direction, when you meet –вал in a Mongolian sentence, decide from the situation whether English wants "if" or "when" — the Mongolian will not tell you, because it was never asked.

Saying "if not"

A negative condition is not built by negating the conditional suffix. The verb goes into its negative form in –хгүй, and then the word бол follows it and does the conditional work:

• Болохгүй бол битгий яв. "If it is not possible, do not go."

Read that one carefully, because it is three separate mechanisms in four words. Болохгүй is the negative of болох; бол turns the negated clause into a condition; битгий яв is a negative order. Each of the three belongs to a page of its own — the system of negative forms is in Saying No in Mongolian: үгүй, биш, байхгүй, –гүй, битгий, and the forms of order and prohibition are in Mongolian Imperatives: Six Degrees of Asking. What belongs here is only the shape of the negative condition: –хгүй plus бол, and never the conditional suffix on a negated stem.

The same бол is what you use when the condition contains no verb to carry a suffix. In the method's Хэрвээ хямдхан бол надад бас хоёр тасалбар аваарай! "If it is cheap, buy me two tickets as well", бол stands straight after the adjective хямдхан (cheap), and the first clause has no verb in it at all. The wider duties of бол as a particle are not this page's business; take it here as the word that makes a condition when the suffix has nothing to attach to.

тэгвэл: drawing the consequence

One word from the conditional's family is worth learning as a unit, because you will hear it constantly in conversation. Тэгвэл is the verb тэгэх (to do so, to be thus) with the conditional suffix –вэл on it. Literally it is "if it is so"; in use it means "in that case", "then", "all right then":

• Тэгвэл тэнд уулзъя! "Then let's meet there!"

It is a response word. Somebody states a situation, and you accept it and draw the consequence. The rest of the тэг– series, which is regular and well worth learning as a block, belongs to энэ and тэр: Mongolian Demonstratives and the т- Series.

What the conditional does not do

Two warnings, both about things English speakers look for and will not find.

First, the conditional suffix is not a subjunctive and not a "would". English has a whole second conditional — "if I had money, I would buy a horse" — and there is nothing in –вал that answers to it. For the unreal case the method uses a different construction: the finite participle in –сан followed by бол, or its longer form болбол.

• Хэрвээ би баян байсан бол нэг том байшин худалдаж авна. "If I were rich, I would buy a big house."
• Чиний захиаг авсан болбол би чамд хэлэх байсан. "If I had got your letter, I would have told you."

Look for the conditional suffix in those two and you will not find it. Байсан and авсан are ordinary –сан participles, and бол does the conditional work on its own — the same бол you have just met in the negative condition. So the suffix really does have a single form with a single job: a real, open condition. Everything else in this area is handled by бол.

Second, –вал is not a question. This matters because бэ and вэ also begin with в and also sit at the end, and a beginner's eye runs them together. But вэ is a separate word standing after the verb, and –вэл is glued to the stem. The question particles are in Mongolian Question Particles: уу, үү, бэ, вэ.

One last structural note. When the condition has a different subject from the main clause, that subject is marked with the accusative, as in the reference-grammar sentence Аавыг ирвэл quoted above. That marking of a whole subordinate clause is a mechanism in its own right and is treated in Complex Sentences in Mongolian: гэж and Nominalised Clauses; it is mentioned here only so that the shape does not look like an error when you meet it.