Goal: Say something was done.
Course progress: lesson 132 / 200 · tip: use the ← and → keys to change lesson
Now hear it and say it
This written course teaches you to read and write. The LIMBA audio course makes you speak: 24 lessons of 12 to 15 minutes, recorded with a native speaker. You listen, you repeat, you answer — the perfect partner for these pages.
Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepThe road was closed
We left Ulaanbaatar at six in the morning: Bold at the wheel, Tuyaa our guide, Nomin, four tourists and me. Four hours later a police officer stopped us. The road was closed: a bridge had been damaged by the summer rain.
Bold just shrugged. In the Gobi there is always another way. We turned onto a dirt track that disappeared into the grey-yellow plain.
Nomin read me the sign by the road: Зам хаагдсан. "The road has been closed", and nobody says by whom.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| хаах | to close |
| хаагдах | to be closed |
| нээгдэх | to be opened, to open |
| харагдах | to be seen, to be visible |
| сонсогдох | to be heard |
| бичигдэх | to be written |
| санаа зоволтгүй | don't worry |
| цагдаа | police officer |
| гүүр | bridge |
| эвдрэх | to break, to get damaged |
| шороон зам | dirt road |
| тэмдэг | sign |
| төөрөх | to get lost |
| Нохой хорио! | Hold the dogs! (called out on arrival at a ger) |
In "The road has been closed", English puts the road first and uses "be" with a participle. Mongolian puts –гд– inside the verb, between the stem and the ending: this is the passive. The thing acted upon becomes the subject, and very often nobody says who did it.
The passive suffix is –гд–, and it has only one shape. After a vowel it goes straight on; after a consonant a linking vowel comes in, chosen by vowel harmony. A few verbs take a bare –д–.
| Plain verb | Passive | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| хаах (to close) | хаагдах | to be closed |
| нээх (to open) | нээгдэх | to be opened, to open |
| харах (to look) | харагдах | to be seen, to be visible |
| сонсох (to listen) | сонсогдох | to be heard |
| бичих (to write) | бичигдэх | to be written |
| барих (to build) | баригдах | to be built |
| олох (to find) | олдох | to be found |
Learn these as words. The linking vowel follows no rule that this course can promise, so do not build a passive on a verb where you have not met one.
Two passives are everyday words. Харагдах is "to be seen, to be visible", сонсогдох "to be heard". Mongolian says what can be seen, not who sees it.
When the doer is unknown, Mongolian is also happy with an active verb and no subject at all: Гүүрийг засаж байна. "The bridge is being repaired" (literally "(they) are repairing the bridge"). Keep the passive for states and results such as хаагдсан, нээгдсэн and харагдаж байна.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Causative, passive and cooperative verbs · Participles: the relative clause goes first
When you arrive at a ger in the countryside, you do not knock and you do not walk straight up. You stop at a distance and call Нохой хорио! ("Hold the dogs!"). Herders' dogs guard the camp seriously. Someone comes out and holds the dog, and only then do you walk to the door. Lesson 81 taught you how to enter a ger; this is what comes before.
Choose the right answer, then press Check my answers. Score 70% or more and the lesson is ticked on your course map.
Well done! Lesson 132 is ticked on your course map.
Write your answer on paper or in your head first, then reveal the model answer.
☰ See all 200 lessons · Back to top ↑
Lesson done? Train your ear
This written course teaches you to read and write. The LIMBA audio course makes you speak: 24 lessons of 12 to 15 minutes, recorded with a native speaker. You listen, you repeat, you answer — the perfect partner for these pages.
Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keep