Goal: Give a toast.
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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 keepThe farewell dinner
The farewell dinner was at home, and the table could hardly hold the dishes: buuz, khuushuur, a whole boiled mutton back, salads, a cake. Oyuunaa came, and so did Bold, in a new shirt.
Bat stood up first and raised his glass. Then everybody turned to me: it was my turn to give a blessing, a real ерөөл. I had practised it with Nomin all afternoon, and I did not forget a single word.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| ерөөл | blessing, a formal good wish |
| ерөөх | to bless, to give one's blessing |
| хундага | glass, cup (for a toast) |
| хундага өргөх | to raise a glass, to give a toast |
| төлөө | for, to (after a genitive: эрүүл энхийн төлөө, to health) |
| эрүүл энх | health |
| амжилт | success |
| ирээдүй | future |
| дүүргэх | to fill |
| болтугай | may it be (in blessings) |
| уруул | lip |
| цагаан идээ | dairy food, "white food" |
| бэлгэдэлтэй | of good omen (сайн бэлгэдэлтэй) |
| жинхэнэ | real, genuine |
A Mongolian toast has a clear order, and Bat's and Limba's both follow it.
1. Call everyone: За, та бүхэн хундагаа дүүргээрэй. 2. Say why you are speaking: who the person is, what you have shared. 3. Wish: … хүсье! 4. Raise the glass: … төлөө хундага өргөе! 5. Everyone answers with the key words: Эрүүл энхийн төлөө!
төлөө ("for the sake of") is a postposition, so the noun in front of it is in the genitive (lesson 37).
The person you wish it to is in the dative-locative, the wish itself has no ending, and the verb is the first-person form хүсье, "I wish".
болтугай is an old form of болох that survives in blessings. Put a verb in –х in front of it, and the sentence becomes a solemn wish.
Use it in a toast or a written wish, never in an ordinary conversation, where it would sound like a priest at a picnic.
ерөөл is the blessing, ерөөх the verb: Сайхан ерөөлөө ("You gave a beautiful blessing"). And when the whole table raises its glasses together, the collective suffix of lesson 134 joins in: Хундагаа өргөцгөөе! ("Let's all raise our glasses!")
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian postpositions · Mongolian imperatives
Many Mongolians make a small offering before drinking: they dip the ring finger into the glass and flick a drop upwards, towards the sky. Watch your hosts and follow them.
If you do not drink alcohol, you never have to. Accept the glass with your right hand, touch it to your lips and put it down: that is fully polite. Traditional blessings often close with the solemn words Өлзий хутаг оршиг!, "may good fortune and blessings abide".
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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