Yes, No, and the Answer That Repeats the Verb

Two words that are smaller than they look

English yes and no are extraordinarily hard-working. They answer anything — is it a pencil? yes. is there any meat? yes. will you have tea? yes. you met him, didn't you? yes — and they stand alone as complete utterances. Mongolian has тийм (yes) and үгүй (no), and they are not that.

Notice first what they are made of. тийм is the pointing word meaning that kind, like that, which has a life of its own among the demonstratives. Saying yes in Mongolian is saying like that — agreeing with the shape of what was said, rather than ticking a box.

Notice second how the course uses them. They are almost always followed by a full clause:

• Тийм, би бэлэн байна. (Yes, I am ready.)
• Үгүй, би багш биш. (No, I am not a teacher.)
• Үгүй, түүний аав ээж энд байхгүй. (No, his parents are not here.)
• Үгүй. Би Хөвсгөл аймагт дадлага хийхээр ирсэн. (No. I came to do a placement in Khövsgöl province.)

That is a habit worth copying, and not only for politeness. The bare words are thin; the clause after them is what actually answers.

There is a warmer yes, Тийм ээ, with the emphasis particle attached: Тийм ээ! Энэ миний гэргий. (Yes! This is my wife.) and Тийм ээ чиний зөв! (Yes, you're right!). The particle that does the warming is one of several, treated on the page on final particles.

The real mechanism: answer with the verb

Here is the pattern that matters, and it has no English counterpart. A question asked with a verb is answered by repeating that verb — in a different form.

English can do something similar — do you drink tea? I don't — but it is an option, and the short answer is built out of an auxiliary. In Mongolian there is no auxiliary to lean on, so the verb itself comes back wearing a different ending, and that ending is the answer.

One trap inside this, and it catches everybody. A question in –х is not answered in –х:

Та хэзээ явах вэ? – Маргааш өглөө эрт явна.

you when go-PART Q – tomorrow morning early go-PRES-FUT

"When are you leaving? – We leave early tomorrow morning."

The stem яв– does not move; only the suffix changes, from the –х of the question to the –на of the statement. Reusing the question's own form leaves the sentence unfinished to a Mongolian ear. Another pair from the same exchange: Та тийшээ юугаар явах вэ? – Бид машинаар Ховд аймаг хүртэл явна. (What will you travel there by? – We'll go by car as far as Khovd province.). The pairing of the two forms belongs to the page on how the Mongolian verb is built; here it matters because it is how you say yes.

Which "no" does the question want?

This is the part that an English speaker cannot guess, because English has one no for all of it. In Mongolian the shape of the short answer is dictated by what the question asked about.

The first two are the pair to drill, because the English is identical and the Mongolian is not. Бууз биш means it isn't a buuz; Бууз байхгүй means there are no buuz. In a guesthouse those are two different pieces of news. The course's advice is to listen to the question rather than to your own intention: if it asked is it...?, answer with биш; if it asked is there...?, answer with байхгүй.

Where биш stands in the sentence, and which ending each verb form takes in order to become negative, are the business of the page on saying no in Mongolian. This page is only about the answer, and for the answer the one thing you need is the question you were asked.

Questions that cannot be answered yes or no

If the question contains a question word — хэн, юу, хаана, хэзээ — then yes and no are not available, in Mongolian any more than in English. You supply the missing piece, and the verb shifts mode as it does in any answer:

Хэн хөдөө явах вэ? – Бид тийшээ хамт явна.

who countryside go-PART Q – we there together go-PRES-FUT

"Who is going to the countryside? – We're going there together."

There is a useful clue in the particle. If the question ended in бэ or вэ, do not reach for тийм; something is being asked of you. If it ended in уу, үү, юу or юү, a yes or a no is wanted. Which particle means which is set out on the question particles page, and the question words themselves on the page on question words.

One more subtlety, from a real exchange in the course. Та нар хичээлээ өнөө орой давтах уу? – Үгүй, харин бид монгол хөгжим сонсоно. (Will you revise your lesson this evening? – No, but we'll listen to Mongolian music.). The answer begins with Үгүй, and yet its verb is positive. The Үгүй rejects the suggestion in the question; it does not negate the sentence that follows it. English does the same thing and nobody notices.

Answers that are neither yes nor no

Three expressions will reach you very early, and all three would be mistranslated as yes or no.

зүгээр means roughly it's fine, no problem, all in order. Offered something, a Mongolian speaker may answer зүгээр meaning yes, thank you or meaning no thanks, I'm fine — the word itself does not decide. The reliable clue is what follows it: Зүгээр, танд их баярлалаа! (Yes, thank you very much!) accepts, while Зүгээр, бид нар ядраагүй. (We're fine, we aren't tired.) declines by adding a negative clause. The word and its range are treated with the other set expressions on the page on politeness and address. The course gives the same shape a second time, which is what shows it to be a pattern rather than an accident: Та нар цангаж байна уу? – Зүгээр, бид нар цангаагүй. (Are you thirsty? – We're fine, we aren't thirsty.)

За is an acknowledgement, not an answer: all right, right then, okay. It accepts a situation or opens a reply, as in За тэгье (all right then, let's do that). Treating it as yes will mislead you about what you have agreed to.

Тийм үү? looks like yes with a question particle on it, and that is exactly what it is — but it is a reaction, meaning really? is that so?, not an answer to anything. If you say it when a yes is expected, you will sound as though you doubt your own answer.

Answering a question you were not really asked

Two kinds of question in Mongolian expect a particular answer, and it pays to recognise them.

A sentence ending in биз дээ supposes the answer is yes and asks for confirmation. The course's own dialogue shows the natural reply: Амьдрал чинь сайн биз дээ. (Your life is going well, isn't it.) is answered Сайн. Харин чинийх? (It is. And yours?) — not with тийм, but by repeating the adjective, which is the same echo habit as with verbs.

And a question in the negative, like Та цай уухгүй юу? (Won't you have some tea?), is a polite offer and not a complaint; why it is polite belongs to the negation page. What matters for answering is that yes and no are ambiguous after a negative question in English too, so neither тийм nor үгүй will do the work. Name the verb instead, and you cannot be misread.

What an answer sounds like

Draw the consequence for listening, because it is the practical pay-off of everything above. A Mongolian answer is frequently one word long, and that word is a verb carrying a suffix. The information you need — yes or no, now or later, done or not done — is at the end of that word, not the beginning. Уухгүй and a present-future form of the same verb begin identically and mean opposite things.

This is why answers are hard to catch before the endings are familiar, and why a learner who has only memorised тийм and үгүй hears an answer and takes away nothing. Listen past the stem. And when you cannot, there is a sentence in the course for exactly that: Би ойлгохгүй байна. (I don't understand.) — itself a verb with a negative ending, answering nothing at all.

What this page does not cover

How to negate a statement rather than answer a question — the choice between –даггүй, –хгүй, –аагүй and –сангүй, and the use of битгий — is on the negation page. байхгүй as a form of байна, and the sentences that get by with no verb at all, are on the page on байна. How the questions themselves are built is on the question particles page.