Goal: Buy food at the market.
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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 shops at the market with Tsetseg
Saturday is market day. Saraa gives me a shopping list and sends me to Tsetseg's stall, where she sells fruit and vegetables and seems to know everyone in the neighbourhood.
Tsetseg speaks slowly for me, weighs everything twice and adds an extra apple "for our foreigner".
I come home with heavy bags and a magic formula that works at every stall: Надад … өгөөч.
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| зах | zakh | market |
| өгөх | ögökh | to give; өгөөч = please give |
| авах | avakh | to take; to buy |
| кило | kilo | kilo |
| хагас | khagas | half |
| литр | litr | litre |
| ширхэг | shirkheg | piece (for counting things) |
| алим | alim | apple |
| төмс | töms | potato, potatoes |
| сонгино | songino | onion, onions |
| өндөг | öndög | egg |
| өөр | öör | other; else |
| бүгд | bügd | all, everything |
| бэлэг | beleg | present, gift |
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.
The market formula has three parts: надад "to me" (lesson 26), the thing you want, and өгөөч "please give", from өгөх (to give). Whatever you want goes in the middle.
The ending of өгөөч is a friendly way to ask someone to do something. You will study it in lesson 67; for now, learn өгөөч as a word.
A quantity word works like a number: it goes in front of the noun, and the noun stays singular. There is no word for "of".
Ширхэг means "piece". Sellers use it to count things one by one: Хэдэн ширхэг вэ? "How many (pieces)?"
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| Юу авах вэ? | What would you like? |
| Өөр юу авах вэ? | What else? |
| Хэдэн кило вэ? | How many kilos? |
| Улаан уу, ногоон уу? | Red or green? |
The last one shows how Mongolian says "or" in a question: it simply asks two yes/no questions in a row, each with its own particle.
Бүгд хэд вэ? "How much is it all?" uses бүгд (all, everything) and the хэд вэ? of lesson 33. When you hand over the money, say Энэ … "Here is …" with the amount, and the seller does the same with your change.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Everyday phrases · Mongolian numbers
Ulaanbaatar's biggest market is Narantuul, which many people still call by its old name, Хар зах, "the black market". You can buy almost anything there, from felt boots to saddles. Watch your bag in the crowd.
For extra politeness, especially with older sellers, you can also say Надад … өгнө үү? It is a more formal way of asking, and you will learn how it works in lesson 66.
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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