Goal: Complain politely in writing.
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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 keepThe heating doesn't work
The heating season started on 15 September, and every flat in our building is warm except ours. The radiators in the living room and in my room stay ice-cold, and at night I sleep in two jumpers.
Bat has already phoned the apartment owners' association twice. "Now we write," says Saraa. "A letter is harder to ignore." Since I am the one who is cold, I write it, and Saraa checks every word.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| албан бичиг | official letter |
| хандах | to address, to turn to (someone) |
| танаа | "to …" (after the addressee, at the head of a formal letter) |
| Сууц өмчлөгчдийн холбоо | apartment owners' association (СӨХ) |
| тоот | number (of a flat) |
| өргөдөл | application, formal request |
| гомдол | complaint |
| халах | to warm up, to heat up |
| яаралтай | urgent, urgently |
| засварчин | repairman |
| урьдчилан | in advance |
| хүндэтгэсэн | respectfully (closing a formal letter) |
| огноо | date |
| эелдэг | polite, courteous |
1. To whom, at the top: the office or position, the name, then танаа — Сууц өмчлөгчдийн холбооны дарга Б. Дорж танаа. 2. The heading, in the middle: Өргөдөл (application), Гомдол (complaint) or Хүсэлт (request). 3. Who you are: Би … амьдардаг / ажилладаг. 4. The problem: what is wrong, and since when. 5. The request: –хыг хүсье, –на уу. 6. The closing: Урьдчилан баярлалаа. Хүндэтгэсэн: your name, phone number and the date.
Put the action you want in the –х participle with the accusative, and end with хүсье, the formal first-person form of хүсэх ("I wish, I request"):
The засаж өгөх chain (lesson 67) adds "for me": repair it for us.
The present-future followed by the question particle is the polite request of official writing and of public signs: өгнө үү, ирнэ үү, хүлээнэ үү, явуулна уу.
Since an event: the –сан participle with the ablative, then хойш. The vowel of –сан drops: эхэлсэн → эхэлснээс хойш, ирсэн → ирснээс хойш.
| Too blunt | Polite and formal |
|---|---|
| Засаарай! | Засаж өгнө үү. |
| Хариу өг! | Хариу өгнө үү. |
| Би засварчин хүсэж байна. | Засварчин явуулж өгөхийг хүсье. |
A good complaint states the facts, the date and one clear request. It does not accuse anyone: Saraa's advice, эелдэг боловч тодорхой, "polite but clear", is the whole art.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Imperatives and polite requests · Politeness and address · Clauses built on –х
Most flats in Ulaanbaatar are heated by hot water from the city's power plants. The heating season officially runs from mid-September to mid-May; in a cold autumn it may start earlier. When something goes wrong inside a building, the first address is the apartment owners' association, СӨХ (Сууц өмчлөгчдийн холбоо), which most blocks of flats have. Keep a copy of your letter, and write the date on it: a dated letter is the start of a paper trail.
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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