Goal: Find the stem of a verb.
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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 makes a list of useful verbs
Nouns, cases, numbers: I can find my way around the city now. But to say what I do all day, I need verbs.
Tonight I start a list of useful verbs in my notebook. Nomin explains that every verb in the dictionary ends in –х, and that the heart of the verb, the stem, is what is left when you take that ending away.
Temuulen insists on adding his own favourite verb to the list.
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| үйл үг | üil üg | verb |
| үг | üg | word |
| жагсаалт | jagsaalt | list |
| явах | yavakh | to go |
| ирэх | irekh | to come |
| идэх | idekh | to eat |
| уух | uukh | to drink |
| унших | unshikh | to read |
| бичих | bichikh | to write |
| сурах | surakh | to learn |
| унтах | untakh | to sleep |
| тоглох | toglokh | to play |
| хийх | khiikh | to do, to make |
| маргааш | margaash | tomorrow |
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.
Every Mongolian verb is listed in a form that ends in –х: явах (to go), ирэх (to come), уух (to drink). It is the form you look up in a dictionary, and the form you will see in the word lists from now on.
The stem is the part of the verb that all the other endings attach to. To find it, take off –х. If the word now ends in a short vowel after a consonant, that vowel is only a link, so take it off too.
| Dictionary form | Stem | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| явах | яв– | to go |
| ирэх | ир– | to come |
| идэх | ид– | to eat |
| өгөх | өг– | to give |
| тоглох | тогл– | to play |
| сурах | сур– | to learn |
| уух | уу– | to drink |
| хийх | хий– | to do, to make |
After a long vowel or a diphthong there is no linking vowel, so only –х comes off: уух → уу–, хийх → хий–, хүлээх (to wait) → хүлээ–.
The little vowel before –х is а, о, э or ө, chosen by vowel harmony: явах, тоглох, ирэх, өгөх. After ж, ч or ш it is и: унших → унш–, бичих → бич–, очих (to go to, to visit) → оч–.
A few verbs hide a vowel in the stem, which shows only before some endings: амьдрах (to live) has the stem амьдар–. The word lists will point them out when you meet them.
You have already used this form without knowing it. In a question, the –х form asks what is going to happen:
Every verb ending in the next lessons is added to the stem, and the vowels of the stem choose the shape of the ending, exactly as with nouns. Яв– gives явна, ир– gives ирнэ: that is lesson 42.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian verbs · One verb, all its forms
Use the stem backwards when you read. Meet a verb with an unknown ending? Take the ending off, add –х with its linking vowel, and look that up. Явна → яв– → явах: "to go".
And some good news for later: a Mongolian verb never changes for "I", "you", "he" or "we". Once you know one form, it works for everybody.
Choose the right answer, then press Check my answers. Score 70% or more to pass: you win XP, up to 3 stars, and the lesson is ticked on your course map.
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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