Goal: Say something is there.
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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 keepLimba explores the flat
This morning I explore the flat properly, with Nomin as my guide. It is a typical Ulaanbaatar flat in an old block: a living room, the bedrooms, a tiny kitchen and a balcony full of jars of pickles.
Nomin points everywhere and says "Энд … байна", "here there is…". In Mongolian, the same little word, байна, says "is" and "there is".
My most important question gets the best answer of the day. Is there internet? Байна. There is.
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| тэнд | tend | there, over there |
| гал тогоо | gal togoo | kitchen |
| хөргөгч | khörgögch | fridge |
| угаалгын өрөө | ugaalgyn öröö | bathroom |
| шүршүүр | shürshüür | shower |
| ванн | vann | bath, bathtub |
| угаалгын машин | ugaalgyn mashin | washing machine |
| интернэт | intyernet | internet |
| тагт | tagt | balcony |
| гэр хороолол | ger khoroolol | ger district |
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.
You know байна from Сайн байна уу?. It also means "there is" and "there are". The word order is: place, thing, байна. The verb always comes last:
English needs the empty word "there" in "there is"; Mongolian does not. The thing simply comes before байна.
энд (here) and тэнд (there) are the same pair as энэ and тэр in lesson 17: э for what is near, т for what is further away.
Add уу after байна to ask whether something is there. To answer yes, just repeat байна:
How to say "no, there isn't" is the next lesson.
байна also says where someone or something is at the moment:
The second one is a question with хаана, so it ends in вэ: байна ends in a vowel. The answer puts a place where хаана was: Тэнд байна ("It's over there").
байна is the same for everyone and everything: I am, you are, it is, they are. It never agrees with the subject: Би энд байна, Тэд энд байна.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: байна: to be, there is · энэ, тэр, энд, тэнд
Most people in Ulaanbaatar live in flats, in blocks built in Soviet times or in new towers. Around the city, on the hills, stretch the гэр хороолол, the ger districts, where families live in gers or small houses inside fenced yards. In winter, the smoke of their stoves is one of the city's big problems, as you will see in lesson 166.
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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