4Grammar and explanations
Three games in one festival
The word наадам comes from the verb наадах, "to play, to have fun". The festival is built around эрийн гурван наадам, "the three games of men", usually called "the three manly games" in English. Look at how the name is made: it is an ordinary noun phrase, with every describing word in front of the noun.
эрийн гурван наадамman-GEN three game"the three manly games"
- эрийн is the genitive of эр (man, male): "of men".
- гурван is the attributive form of гурав, the form a number takes before a noun (lesson 23).
- наадам comes last, because in Mongolian the noun always closes its phrase.
The three games
| Game | Mongolian | The verb inside |
|---|
| wrestling | бөх, бөхийн барилдаан | барилдах, to wrestle |
| archery | сур харваа | харвах, to shoot an arrow |
| horse racing | морин уралдаан | уралдах, to race |
Notice the word families: барилдах gives барилдаан (a bout), уралдах gives уралдаан (a race), харвах gives харваа (shooting). You do not need to build such nouns yourself yet; just learn to see the verb inside them.
сур is the name of the small leather targets the archers aim at, so сур харваа is literally "shooting at the leather targets". морин is the form морь (horse) takes in fixed expressions, as in морин хуур, the horse-head fiddle.
A yearly event: –даг
A festival that comes back every summer is a habit of the calendar, so Mongolian uses the habitual –даг (lesson 44), and болох in its sense "to take place":
Наадам жилд нэг удаа болдог.Naadam year-DAT one time take.place-HAB"Naadam takes place once a year."
Сур харваа хаана болдог вэ?archery where take.place-HAB Q"Where does the archery take place?"
Эмэгтэйчүүд сур харвадаг.woman-PL archery shoot-HAB"Women do archery."
Эмэгтэйчүүд барилддаггүй.woman-PL wrestle-HAB-NEG"Women do not wrestle."
Plurals you will hear at Naadam
бөх → бөхчүүд (wrestlers), эмэгтэй → эмэгтэйчүүд (women), монгол → монголчууд (Mongolians). Two plurals are irregular and simply have to be learnt: охин → охид (girls) and хүү → хөвгүүд (boys).
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Present and future: –на, –ж байна and –даг · The Mongolian plural · Numbers before a noun
