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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepAn article about national parks
Bat leaves the newspaper open on the kitchen table at an article about Mongolia's protected areas. "Read it," he says. "You've been to Khövsgöl. Now find out who protects it."
The article is full of long verbs: хамгаалагдаж, байгуулагдсан, нутагшуулсан. Each one hides a small suffix in the middle. With a pencil, a cup of tea and Bat at my side, I take them apart one by one.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| тусгай хамгаалалттай газар | specially protected area |
| хамгаалагдах | to be protected |
| тооцогдох | to be considered, to count as |
| байгалийн цогцолборт газар | national park |
| нутагшуулах | to settle (animals) in an area, to reintroduce |
| сэргээх | to restore, to bring back |
| тахь | takhi, Przewalski's horse |
| устах | to die out, to become extinct |
| авчрах | to bring |
| огтлох | to cut, to cut down |
| ан агнах | to hunt |
| байгаль хамгаалагч | park ranger |
| ажиллуулах | to employ, to make work, to run (a machine) |
| дагавар | suffix |
A long verb in a newspaper is built in three layers: stem + voice suffix + ending. Peel off the ending, then look for –гд– (passive) or –уул– / –үүл– (causative) in front of it. A linking vowel often appears before –гд–: хамгаала–гд–, тооцо–гд–.
| Word | Stem | Voice | Ending | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| хамгаалагдаж | хамгаал– | –гд– | –ж | being protected |
| тооцогддог | тооц– | –гд– | –дог | is considered |
| байгуулагдсан | байгуул– | –гд– | –сан | was founded |
| нутагшуулсан | нутагш– | –уул– | –сан | settled (animals) in an area |
| ажиллуулж | ажилл– | –уул– | –ж | employing |
With –гд–, the thing that is protected, founded or considered becomes the subject. Who did it is usually left out.
With –уул–, the subject does not do the action but makes it happen:
сэргээн is a converb typical of written style: it does the same job as сэргээж. You will meet it in pairs such as сэргээн нутагшуулах (to reintroduce) and хамтран ажиллах (to work together).
Mongolian newspapers often keep the verb active and simply leave out the subject. Мод огтлохыг хориглодог is literally "(they) forbid cutting trees": English turns it into a passive, "cutting trees is forbidden".
The article's own title is a good example of a long noun group: Монголын тусгай хамгаалалттай газар, "Mongolia's specially protected areas". хамгаалалт is a noun in –лт (lesson 153), and –тай turns it into an adjective: "having protection".
Some ordinary verbs carry –гд– without any sense of "being done to": нэмэгдэх (to increase), өөрчлөгдөх (to change), таалагдах (to be liked). Read them as single verbs: Жуулчдын тоо нэмэгдсэн, "the number of tourists has increased".
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Causative, passive, cooperative · The order of suffixes · How a word is built
Mongolia's protected areas come in four kinds: strictly protected areas (дархан цаазат газар), national parks (байгалийн цогцолборт газар), nature reserves and natural monuments. Bogd Khan Mountain, just south of Ulaanbaatar, is often described as one of the oldest protected areas in the world. Khustai National Park, about a hundred kilometres west of the capital, is where the takhi, Przewalski's horse, was brought back to Mongolia in the 1990s after disappearing from the wild.
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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