Goal: Say whose something is.
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Now hear it and say it
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Good news this morning: the airline has found my second bag, and a driver brings it to the flat. Saraa shows me the guest room, which is now officially my room, and helps me unpack.
In the corridor there are suddenly four bags, and nobody knows which is whose. Temuulen turns it into a game: he points at each bag and asks whose it is.
And I notice something: Saraa has started to say чи to me. Nomin explains that it means I am part of the family now.
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| түүний | tüünii | his, her |
| манай | manai | our |
| танай | tanai | your (of several people, of a family) |
| цүнх | tsünkh | bag |
| ачаа | achaa | luggage |
| хувцас | khuvtsas | clothes |
| дэвтэр | devter | notebook |
| үзэг | üzeg | pen |
| ээж ээ | eej ee | Mum! (calling your mother) |
The “Letters” column is a letter-by-letter guide to the Cyrillic, not exact pronunciation. It disappears after level A1: by then you read Cyrillic directly.
In lesson 12 you met миний, чиний and таны with нэр. Here is the whole family of these words:
| Person | Possessive | Example |
|---|---|---|
| би (I) | миний (my) | миний ачаа |
| чи (you, familiar) | чиний (your) | чиний дэвтэр |
| та (you, polite) | таны (your) | таны нэр |
| тэр (he, she) | түүний (his, her) | түүний үзэг |
| бид (we) | манай (our) | манай гэр |
| та нар (you, several) | танай (your) | танай гэр |
Watch түүний: it looks nothing like тэр, so learn it as a word of its own. And it says nothing about gender: түүний is "his" or "her".
The possessive goes in front of the noun, as in English, and neither word changes: миний ээж, миний аав, миний хувцас.
таны is "your" for one person, said politely. танай is "your" for several people, and so also for a whole family: Limba says Танай гэр сайхан байна to Saraa because the home belongs to the whole family. In the same way, манай is "our", for anything that belongs to a group or a family: манай хот (our city), манай хөрш (our neighbour).
When someone asks about "your" bag, the answer is about "my" bag:
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Personal pronouns and possessives
When Mongolians talk about their home, their family or their country, they nearly always say манай (our) where English says "my": манай гэр, манай хот, манай Монгол. A home belongs to the family, not to one person. In the same spirit, you ask a friend about the whole household with танай, as in Танайхан сайн уу? ("Is your family well?").
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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