Forty Mongolian Phrases You Will Use Every Day

A phrasebook that comes apart

An English speaker coming to Mongolian normally meets two separate things: a list of phrases to say, and a grammar to study, with no visible connection between them. That split is an accident of how books are made, and it costs you time. Every one of the forty phrases below is built out of the same endings that the rest of this guide explains one by one. Learn the phrase whole, because you need it whole at the door of a ger; then look at what it is made of, because the same ending will turn up on a different word tomorrow.

Thanks, apology, and the small word that keeps things moving

The first surprise is that thank you is a verb in the past. Баярлалаа is built on the verb of being pleased, with the ending that reports what has just happened, so it says, more or less, I have been pleased. That ending is one of the four Mongolian pasts, on the Mongolian past.

Уучлаарай carries the polite imperative ending, which turns up six more times on this page; the method is explicit that the word does three jobs — apologising, catching a stranger's attention, and taking leave. The ending belongs to the six degrees of asking. Маш сайн байгаа баярлалаа is the fuller answer when someone asks after you: the thanks is part of the answer, and the байгаа inside it belongs to байна: to be, there is, and having no verb for to have.

За is the word you will hear most often after your own sentences. It covers right, fine, well then and off we go. Use it to acknowledge, not as yes in answer to a question.

When you have not understood

Take the first of them apart:

Би ойлгохгүй байна.

I understand-PART-NEG be-PRES-FUT

"I don't understand."

No word for not stands in front of the verb: the negative is inside it, and which negative you use depends on which verb form you are negating — six answers, on saying no in Mongolian. The ending that does it, –гүй, never reshapes itself to match the vowels of its host: see the suffixes that do not follow vowel harmony. Мэдэхгүй is the same shape and needs no pronoun at all.

Энэ монголоор юу вэ? is the most useful sentence here, because it turns every object within reach into a vocabulary lesson. The ending on монгол is the instrumental, which is how Mongolian names the language something is said in; see the instrumental. Дахиад нэг давт ends in a bare stem, the blunt end of the imperative scale.

Pointing at something and asking about it

Two of these end in вэ and one in бэ, and the difference is neither meaning nor politeness: the choice is settled by the word standing in front of the particle, on a test that has nothing to do with vowel harmony. The test, and the separate question of when a sentence takes уу instead, are on question particles.

Ямар үнэтэй вэ? asks, word for word, of what price is it; the ending on үнэ is the comitative, which attaches a quality to a thing and has a page of its own. The method gives the clock question without a final particle, exactly as written above; the words for telling the time are on Mongolian time expressions.

Saying who you are, and asking back

The third and fourth phrases are the same question twice over, and together they show something English hides. Хаанаас has an ending on it because the asking is about movement away from a place; хаана has none because being born happened in a place and nothing moved. English uses from and in and you learn them as two prepositions; Mongolian uses the ablative and the dative-locative, and the three-way split that English flattens into to is on руу and рүү.

Та хэдэн настай вэ? asks, literally, with how much age are you — the comitative again, doing work no English preposition does. And Та юу хийдэг вэ? is not about this minute: the ending –дэг marks what someone does habitually, which is why the question means what do you do for a living and not what are you doing. The three ways Mongolian splits what English calls the present are on present and future.

Миний and таны are the genitives of the pronouns, declined in full on personal pronouns and possessives. And Mongolian asks who is your name rather than what, a trap with a reason behind it, on Mongolian question words; the full sentence for stating a name is on Mongolian names.

Saying how you are

Look at what the English translations hide. I am happy and I am tired look like the same sentence in English, and they are not the same sentence in Mongolian at all. Баяртай is a quality attached to a noun, so the sentence is I am with joy; ядарч is a verb of becoming tired carrying a converb ending, so the sentence is closer to I am tiring. Hunger is built like ядарч байна, not like баяртай, and the English gives you no way to guess which is which. The verb байна that closes all five is on байна: to be, there is, and having no verb for to have; the converb endings –ж and –ч are on converbs.

One small thing worth noticing: баяртай is also the word for goodbye — the farewell is this adjective on its own, a cheerful way to part. The аа at the end of Сайн байна аа is a particle, not part of the verb; see final particles.

The wishes you will hear at the table and at the door

Three of these six carry one ending in four different dresses — –аарай, –оорой, –ээрэй, –өөрэй — chosen by the vowels of the stem and not by the meaning. That is why унтаарай and хооллоорой do not rhyme. The four forms are in the table on the four-form suffix table; the rule that picks between them is on vowel harmony.

Сайхан амраарай hides a spelling adjustment: the stem is амар–, but its short second vowel drops out when an ending arrives, giving амраарай rather than what the dictionary form suggests. It happens all over the language, and it is set out on how a Mongolian word is built.

The toast reverses English word order completely. Төлөө means for and comes after its noun, which stands in the genitive. Everything English puts in front of a noun, Mongolian puts behind it, with the case that word demands; see postpositions and the case each one takes and the genitive. Маргааш уулзая ends in the let me, let us form, on Mongolian imperatives.

Getting something done, and two you hope not to need

The first phrase is three grammatical ideas in four syllables:

Надад заагаад өгөөч.

I-DAT show-CONV give-IMP

"Would you show me?"

The person who benefits stands in the dative-locative; the first verb takes a converb ending because it is not the last verb, with a linking г to carry it; the last verb takes the soft spoken request ending –өөч. Mongolian builds a polite request by handing the action to a second verb meaning give, which is not a trick English offers. The dative-locative is on its page, the request ending on imperatives.

The third phrase is the one to learn before you travel, and it has three verbs in a row:

Бид танай гэрт орж үзэж болох уу?

we your ger-DAT enter-CONV see-CONV be.allowed-PART Q

"May we come in and look at your ger?"

Only the last verb says anything about mood or permission; the two before it wear converb endings and queue up in the order the actions happen. Where such a chain stops is on sentences with two verbs, and болох, which carries may, can and become, is on can, must, want, like. Notice too that the predicate comes last and the question particle after it: see word order.

Би явлаа uses the same ending as баярлалаа: the departure is something that has just taken effect, announced as you stand up. English says I am off with a present; Mongolian says it with a past.

Two that keep a conversation going

In the first, юу is the question word what and not the question particle that looks identical; keeping the two apart is a job of the page on question particles. In the second, the thing you like stands in the dative-locative, because дуртай is not a verb meaning to like but a quality held towards something. That pair, дуртай and хайртай, is on there is no verb to like; the small vowel before the ending in улсад is on choosing the right case ending.

What to do with the forty

Say them out loud before you parse them: a learner who can produce six of these cleanly gets further than one who can recite the case table. Then work the other way — take any phrase above, find the ending in it, and go to the page that owns that ending. You will meet the same ending on words you have never seen, and that is the part of a phrase still useful tomorrow.