Goal: Sound natural in conversation.
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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 keepLong talk at night
I could not sleep tonight. At one in the morning I found Bat in the kitchen with the kettle on, and we talked until the tea went cold.
It was the longest conversation I have ever had in Mongolian, and the most natural. I noticed that Bat's sentences are full of little words that mean almost nothing on their own: за, тэгэхээр, ер нь. They do not carry the message; they carry the conversation.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| за | well, all right, OK (to open, agree or close) |
| тэгэхээр | so, therefore |
| ер нь | actually; by the way; on the whole |
| мэдээж | of course |
| үнэндээ | actually, to tell the truth |
| гэсэн үг | that means |
| урт хугацаа | a long time |
| огт | at all (with a negative) |
| аль хэдийн | already |
| хуримтлуулах | to save up, to build up |
| сайжрах | to improve, to get better |
| үнэхээр | really, truly |
Discourse markers do not change what a sentence means. They tell the listener how it fits into the conversation: here is a new topic, here is a conclusion, here is what I really think. Without them a learner sounds like a textbook; with them, like a person.
| Marker | What it does | From the dialogue |
|---|---|---|
| за | opens, accepts or closes: "well, right, OK" | За, цай ууя. |
| тэгэхээр | draws a conclusion: "so" | Тэгэхээр удахгүй явна гэсэн үг. |
| ер нь | turns the talk: "by the way", "actually", "on the whole" | Ер нь чи хэзээ буцах вэ? |
| мэдээж | "of course" | Мэдээж ирнэ! |
| үнэндээ | "actually, to be honest" | Үнэндээ нойр хүрэхгүй байна. |
All five normally open the sentence, followed by a slight pause, which you can mark with a comma. мэдээж and за can also stand alone as a whole reply: Мэдээж! ("Of course!"), За! ("OK!"). Doubled, За, за calms someone down or brings a topic to an end.
Two of them are transparent. тэгэхээр is тэг– ("to do so, to be so") with –хээр (lesson 117): "since it is so", hence "so". үнэндээ is үнэн (truth) with the dative-locative and the reflexive possessive: "in its truth". ер нь has the widest range: it can change the subject, as in Bat's first question, or introduce a general truth, as in Limba's answer.
One marker per sentence sounds natural; three in a row sounds like a parody. In an essay (lesson 179), leave out за and use тиймээс instead of тэгэхээр; мэдээж is fine in writing as well as in speech.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian final particles · Everyday Mongolian phrases
Listen for two more. Нээрээ! means "oh, that's right!" when you suddenly remember something, and нөгөө ("that one, you know") is what Mongolians say while they look for a word: Нөгөө… юу билээ? "That… what's it called again?"
Using a filler like that, instead of English "um", is one of the quickest ways to sound fluent while you think.
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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