Goal: Say something has just happened.
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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 arrives late to dinner
Tonight the bus crawled along Peace Avenue in a traffic jam, and I reached the flat forty minutes late for dinner. Through the door I could hear spoons and laughter.
Nomin taught me the words for exactly this moment, and I called them out as I took off my boots: Би ирлээ! Temuulen shouted back with the same ending, Saraa put the cold food back on the stove, and nobody was cross.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| хоцрох | to be late |
| уучлаарай | sorry, excuse me |
| удаан | slow, slowly; for a long time |
| зам | road, way |
| түгжрэл | traffic jam |
| зүгээр | it's all right, never mind |
| хөрөх | to go cold, to cool down |
| халаах | to heat up |
| аягалах | to pour (into a bowl) |
| бэлэн | ready |
| болох | to become |
| Сайхан хооллоорой! | Enjoy your meal! |
| унтах | to sleep, to go to bed |
The ending –лаа places an action right next to the moment you are speaking. Most often it has only just happened: Би ирлээ! "I'm here, I've just arrived!" But the same ending also announces what you are about to do this very second: Би явлаа! "I'm off!" What counts is not past or future, but nearness.
–лаа closes the sentence, like –на, and it has the usual four shapes, chosen by the vowels of the stem: –лаа / –лоо / –лээ / –лөө.
| Stem vowels | Ending | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| а, у | –лаа | явлаа (I'm off); аягаллаа (I've poured) |
| о | –лоо | хоцорлоо (I'm late); боллоо (it has become) |
| э, и, ү | –лээ | ирлээ (has come); үзлээ (has seen) |
| ө | –лөө | хөрлөө (has gone cold) |
Use –лаа for what is happening in front of you, and –сан (lesson 51) for everything else. At the window you say Онгоц ирлээ! "The plane has landed!"; an hour later, when someone asks, you say Онгоц ирсэн. "The plane came." If you choose –сан where –лаа was possible, you sound a little flat, not wrong: a safe mistake to make.
сая and саяхан mean "just now, recently", and дөнгөж сая means "only this second". They go before the verb.
Баярлалаа is баярлах "to be glad" with this very ending: "I am glad (right now)", which is how Mongolian says thank you. And when someone explains something to you, Ойлголоо! (from ойлгох, to understand) means "Got it!"
You will almost always say –лаа rather than ask with it. To ask whether something happened, use –сан: Автобус ирсэн үү?
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The four Mongolian pasts · The four-form suffix table
At the end of a good evening with friends, Mongolians often say Сайхан боллоо! "That was lovely!", literally "it has turned out fine": the evening has only just ended, so –лаа fits perfectly. A guest leaving a house may also say Би явлаа! at the door, and the hosts answer Сайн яваарай! "Go well!"
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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