Goal: Say 'Nomin's book', 'the city's centre'.
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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepVisiting Nomin's university
Nomin invites me to her university, right in the city centre. She shows me the big old building, the library and her teacher's office.
Her classmates call me "Nomin's friend", and everywhere I hear the same little ending that means "of". Even the library has it: номын сан, "the treasury of books".
I like that name so much that I write it on the first page of my notebook.
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| номын сан | nomyn san | library (literally: treasury of books) |
| хэний | khenii | whose (хэн + genitive) |
| багшийн | bagshiin | the teacher's |
| Номины | Nominy | Nomin's |
| Батын | Batyn | Bat's |
| Сараагийн | Saraagiin | Saraa's |
| анги | angi | class (group of students) |
| ангийн найз | angiin naiz | classmate |
| улс | uls | state, country |
| Монгол Улс | Mongol Uls | Mongolia (the state) |
| хотын төв | khotyn töv | the city centre |
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.
Mongolian puts the owner first, with an ending, and the thing second, with no ending at all. English can say "Nomin's book" or "the book of Nomin"; Mongolian has only one pattern. This case is called the genitive.
The genitive has several shapes, but they follow the end of the word.
| Ending | When | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| –ын | after a consonant, in words with а, о, у | хотын, номын, Батын, Болдын |
| –ийн | after a consonant, in words with э, ө, ү (or only и), and after ж, ч, ш, ь | гэрийн, Цэцэгийн, багшийн, сургуулийн |
| –ы / –ий | after н | Номины, хүний (of a person) |
| –гийн | after a long vowel | Сараагийн, Дулмаагийн, Оюунаагийн |
| –н | after –ай and –ой | оройн (of the evening) |
Notice two things. The genitive has no form with о or ө: хот gives хотын. And words in ж, ч, ш take –ийн even with а: багш gives багшийн.
Genitives can stack. Read them from the end backwards: the last noun is the main one.
Хэн (who) gives хэний (whose). It stands where the answer would stand, in front of the noun.
The answer: Энэ миний багшийн ном. Remember that миний, чиний, таны (lesson 19) are the genitives of the pronouns: they too come before the noun.
Many everyday words are genitive phrases: номын сан (library), хотын төв (city centre), ангийн найз (classmate). Learn them as units, the way English learns "bookshop".
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The genitive case · Mongolian names
Mongolians have no family name in the English sense. In front of their own name, they write their father's name in the genitive. So Nomin's full name is Батын Номин, "Bat's Nomin", and her brother is Батын Тэмүүлэн.
You call people by their own name only: Номин, never Батын. On official lists, people are sorted by their own name, not by the father's.
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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