Goal: Contrast then and now.
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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepGrandmother remembers the old days
Dulmaa has come to Ulaanbaatar for a few days, and the whole family drives out to the summer cottage in the hills. In the evening it turns cold, so Bat lights the stove and we sit around it with bowls of milk tea.
Temuulen asks his grandmother what life was like when she was young. Dulmaa laughs, looks into the fire for a long moment, and starts to remember.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| урьд нь | before, in the old days |
| тэр үед | at that time, in those days |
| хариулах | to herd, to tend (animals); also: to answer (lesson 85) |
| дотуур байр | boarding school dormitory |
| радио | radio |
| малчид | herders (plural of малчин) |
| нарны зай | solar panel |
| нэгдэл | agricultural collective (before 1990) |
| хувийн өмч | private property |
| урьдын | former, of the old days |
| одоогийн | present-day, of today |
| бие биедээ | to each other |
| ойр | close, near |
| ухаантай | clever, intelligent |
Put the habitual –даг in front of байсан and the habit moves into the past: it is what you used to do, again and again. байсан never changes shape.
The negative puts –гүй on the habitual: –даггүй байсан, "never used to, there never was".
Compare the plain past: Би нэг удаа мориор очсон is one ride; Би мориор очдог байсан is a regular habit.
болох means "to become". After the habitual, болсон says that something has become a habit only recently:
The same verb works after a noun or an adjective: гар утастай болсон (have come to own mobile phones), амар болсон (has become easy).
| Then | Now |
|---|---|
| урьд нь | одоо |
| тэр үед | өнөө үед |
| урьдын амьдрал | одоогийн амьдрал |
| бага байхдаа | одоо бол |
урьдын and одоогийн are genitive forms used like adjectives, in front of a noun.
Use –хдаа (lesson 155) when the person is the subject of the whole sentence: Би бага байхдаа… When the "when" clause has a different subject from the rest, use –хад, often with the subject in the accusative: Таныг бага байхад ямар байсан бэ?, "what was it like when you were little?".
X, Y хоёрын аль нь…? asks "which of the two, X or Y…?":
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The past and "used to" · The habitual –даг · Time expressions
From the late 1950s to the early 1990s, almost all herders worked in collectives, нэгдэл. The animals belonged to the collective, and herders were paid a salary to look after them. When the collectives were dissolved in the early 1990s, the livestock was shared out and became private property.
Many herders' children still spend the school year in a dormitory in the district centre, сумын төв, and go home to the family camp for the holidays.
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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