Goal: Describe the Gobi.
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This morning I rode a camel for the first time. Dorj, a camel herder who lives near the dunes, brought five Bactrian camels. They knelt down in the sand so that we could climb on, grumbling like old men.
Sitting between two humps feels safe, until the camel stands up: back legs first, and you are thrown forward. We rode for an hour along the dunes. Dorj told me that the humps are full of fat, not water, and that his family drinks camel's milk every day.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| тэмээ | camel |
| бөх | hump (also: wrestler) |
| хоёр бөхт тэмээ | Bactrian camel, the two-humped camel |
| говь | desert steppe; Говь: the Gobi |
| элс | sand |
| бараг | almost; бараг уначихлаа: I nearly fell |
| сөгдөх | to kneel |
| мордох | to get on (a horse, a camel) |
| хойд хөл | back leg |
| өөх | fat |
| хоормог | fermented camel's milk |
| исгэх | to ferment |
| амсах | to taste |
| ноос | wool |
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| говь | desert steppe; Говь: the Gobi |
| цөл | desert (bare, almost without life) |
| элс | sand |
| манхан, элсэн манхан | sand dune |
| хайрга | gravel |
| заг | saxaul, the hardy shrub of the Gobi |
| тэмээ | camel |
Mongolians make a difference between говь, a dry plain with thin grass and bushes where herders still live with their animals, and цөл, a bare desert. Most of the Gobi is not sand at all: it is gravel and stony plains, with great dunes only in some places, such as Khongoryn Els.
To describe a place or an animal, use the comitative as "having" (lesson 26), and –гүй as "without". The describing word goes before the noun, like any adjective.
A shorter form in –т survives in set phrases: хоёр бөхт тэмээ, the Bactrian camel.
The genitive of тэмээ is тэмээний, with н, like цайны and сүүний: тэмээний сүү, тэмээний ноос.
For where an animal lives, as a permanent fact, use the habitual байдаг, and байдаггүй for the negative.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The comitative case · Mongolian adjectives · The genitive case
Mongolia's camels are Bactrian camels, with two humps of fat, a thick winter coat that falls out in big pieces in spring, and a calm, grumbling character. In the far south-west of the Gobi live a few hundred хавтгай, wild Bactrian camels, among the rarest large animals in the world. The camel is also one of the five herders' animals, the таван хошуу мал of lesson 75.
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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