Goal: Say the date.
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Now hear it and say it
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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepLimba notes the visa dates
My passport lies open on the desk next to a calendar. The visa stamp says three months. I arrived at the beginning of September, so my visa runs until the end of November, and I plan to stay a whole year.
Nomin helps me write the dates in Mongolian. There are no month names like "September" or "March" here: a month is simply "the ninth month", "the third month".
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| сар | month; moon |
| аравдугаар сар | October |
| арван нэгдүгээр сар | November |
| арван хоёрдугаар сар | December |
| хоёрдугаар сар | February |
| виз | visa |
| хүчинтэй | valid |
| сүүлч | end |
| хүртэл | until; as far as |
| сунгах | to extend |
| жил | year |
| Цагаан сар | Tsagaan Sar, the Lunar New Year |
| ихэвчлэн | usually |
| тэмдэглэх | to celebrate; to note down |
Mongolian months have no names. A month is an ordinal number ("first", "second"…) followed by сар, which means both "month" and "moon".
| Month | Mongolian |
|---|---|
| January | нэгдүгээр сар |
| February | хоёрдугаар сар |
| March | гуравдугаар сар |
| April | дөрөвдүгээр сар |
| May | тавдугаар сар |
| June | зургаадугаар сар |
| July | долоодугаар сар |
| August | наймдугаар сар |
| September | есдүгээр сар |
| October | аравдугаар сар |
| November | арван нэгдүгээр сар |
| December | арван хоёрдугаар сар |
The ordinal is the counting form of the number plus –дугаар / –дүгээр, and vowel harmony picks the shape. Back-vowel numbers take –дугаар (хоёр, гурав, тав, зургаа, долоо, найм, арав); front-vowel numbers take –дүгээр (нэг, дөрөв, ес). In арван нэгдүгээр and арван хоёрдугаар only the last number decides. Note that the ending goes on the counting form гурав, not on гурван, the form used before a noun: гуравдугаар.
Add –д to сар: аравдугаар сард "in October".
For a date, the month goes into the genitive, сарын, and the day number follows, usually in the form used before a noun (таван, хорин).
Өнөөдөр сарын хэдэн бэ?, literally "Today is the how-many of the month?", asks for the date: the same genitive сарын, then хэдэн "how many" (lesson 23) in the place of the day number. The particle is бэ because хэдэн ends in н. A fuller form you will also hear is Өнөөдөр хэдний өдөр вэ? "What day of the month is it today?"
хүртэл "until" follows the word it limits, with no ending of its own: арван нэгдүгээр сарын сүүлч хүртэл "until the end of November".
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian numbers · Time expressions and their cases
In writing, Mongolians usually put the year first and shorten the ordinal to –р: 2026 оны 10-р сарын 15 is 15 October 2026. The order runs from the biggest unit to the smallest, each in the genitive: the year (оны), the month (сарын), then the day. In speech you will also hear short forms such as гурван сар for March, as in Гурван сарын найман, the 8th of March, Women's Day.
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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