Goal: Say what you do or will do.
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Now hear it and say it
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Sunday evening. Nomin and I plan tomorrow on the kitchen calendar: my Mongolian class in the morning, the library in the afternoon, a film at home in the evening. Saraa promises buuz.
One verb form does all the work: –на, with its cousins –но, –нэ and –нө. It means "I do" and "I will do" at the same time.
The word маргааш, tomorrow, is enough to make it the future.
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| очих | ochikh | to go to, to visit |
| үзэх | üzekh | to see, to watch |
| кино | kino | film; cinema |
| хичээл | khicheel | lesson, class |
| өглөө | öglöö | morning; in the morning |
| үдээс хойш | üdees khoish | in the afternoon |
| орой | oroi | evening; in the evening |
| хамт | khamt | together |
| бууз | buuz | buuz, steamed meat dumplings |
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.
Add –на (or –но, –нэ, –нө) to the stem of lesson 41 and you have a complete verb. Grammars call it the present-future, because one form covers both. It is the same for every person: би явна, чи явна, тэр явна, бид явна.
The vowels of the stem choose the form, exactly as with –аас in lesson 36.
| Ending | Stem with | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| –на | а, у | явна, авна, сурна, ууна |
| –но | о | очно, тоглоно |
| –нэ | э, ү, or only и | ирнэ, иднэ, үзнэ, хийнэ |
| –нө | ө | өгнө |
When the stem ends in two consonants, a linking vowel slips in before the ending: унш– → уншина, унт– → унтана, тогл– → тоглоно. A stem with one final consonant takes the ending directly: яв– → явна, оч– → очно. A few verbs hide a vowel in their stem instead: туслах (to help) gives тусална, амьдрах (to live) gives амьдарна. Learn these as you meet them.
Mongolian does not need a separate future. A time word does the job: өнөөдөр (today), маргааш (tomorrow), өглөө (in the morning), үдээс хойш (in the afternoon), орой (in the evening). Without a time word, –на often sounds like a plan or a promise.
A question about what will happen uses the –х form of lesson 41; the answer uses –на. Answering a –х question with a –х form is a classic beginner's mistake.
Note that очих (to go to, to visit) takes the place in the dative-locative: номын санд очно.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Present and future: three forms · The four-form suffix table
To say yes to a question about an action, Mongolians very often skip тийм and simply repeat the verb: Ирэх үү? "Will you come?" — Ирнэ! "I'll come!" Кино үзэх үү? — Үзнэ!
It sounds friendly and decided. Try it: it is one of the quickest ways to sound natural.
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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