Goal: Recognise the past in -в.
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Now hear it and say it
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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepReading a short news item
Bat reads the newspaper every morning with his first bowl of tea. Today he folds it, taps a short article and slides it across the table to me: "Read this one. It's about us."
It is about the first snow. Last night it fell on the whole city, and this morning the window is white. I know almost every word of the article, but the verbs look strange. They all end in в.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| сонин | newspaper |
| мэдээ | news item, news |
| амархан | easy |
| унших | to read |
| анхны | first |
| цас | snow |
| орох | to enter; of snow or rain: to fall |
| харах | to see, to look |
| гадаа | outside |
| тоглох | to play |
| машин | car |
| ингэж | like this, in this way |
| болох | to happen; to become |
Open a Mongolian newspaper and almost every verb ends in –в. This third past reports finished events in texts: the news, history books, stories, a report about somebody else. You need to recognise it from now on. For your own everyday sentences, –сан (lesson 51) is always the right choice.
–в has only one shape. A stem that ends in a vowel takes it directly. A stem that ends in a consonant first adds a linking vowel chosen by vowel harmony (а, о, э or ө).
| Stem | –в past | Everyday past |
|---|---|---|
| тогло– (play) | тоглов | тоглосон |
| хий– (do) | хийв | хийсэн |
| яв– (go) | явав | явсан |
| ор– (enter; of snow: fall) | оров | орсон |
| ир– (come) | ирэв | ирсэн |
| өг– (give) | өгөв | өгсөн |
Don't be thrown by явав: the first в belongs to the stem яв– "go", the last one is the past ending. In the same way авав is "took", from ав–.
With a question word, the –в form usually closes the question on its own, with no particle at all. You will often hear short questions like these:
The –в form ends in в, so if you do meet a particle after it in a question with a question word, it is бэ, never вэ (lesson 18). A yes/no question takes уу or үү in the usual way, as in the greeting Та сайн явж ирэв үү? "Did you have a good journey?" For your own questions, the –сан forms of lesson 58 remain the everyday choice.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The four Mongolian pasts · Question particles
Mongolian headlines love –в. A typical one reads like a tiny sentence: Анхны цас оров "The first snow has fallen". In folk tales and history books you will also meet a fourth past, –жээ: Урьд энэ газар том хот байжээ. "Long ago there was a great city in this place." For now, just recognise it; it has its own lesson, 136.
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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