Goal: Ask what happened.
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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepTemuulen's school day
Temuulen comes home from school at four, drops his bag in the corridor and heads straight for the kitchen. Saraa is still at the hospital, so today I am the one who asks the questions.
It is perfect practice. Every question I ask is in the past, and every answer comes back with the same ending, until I reach the one question he does not like.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| хаана | where |
| хэзээ | when |
| сургууль | school |
| математик | maths |
| хэл | language; монгол хэл Mongolian (also the school subject) |
| үзэх | to see; of a school subject: to study, to have |
| зураг | picture |
| зурах | to draw |
| хэлэх | to say, to tell |
| шалгалттай | having a test |
| гэрийн даалгавар | homework |
To ask what happened, put a question word where the answer will go, put the verb in the past, and end with бэ. The particle is бэ and not вэ because every –сан form ends in н (lesson 18: бэ after в, л, м, н).
| Question word | Question | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| хаана (where) | Хаана байсан бэ? | Where were you? |
| юу (what) | Юу хийсэн бэ? | What did you do? |
| хэзээ (when) | Хэзээ ирсэн бэ? | When did you come? |
| хэн (who) | Хэн ирсэн бэ? | Who came? |
| хэдэн цагт (at what time) | Хэдэн цагт ирсэн бэ? | At what time did you come? |
Nothing moves in a Mongolian question. Чи хаана байсан бэ? is answered Би сургуульд байсан: the answer sits exactly where хаана was. The answer usually repeats the verb, and the subject can be left out: Сургуульд байсан.
Without a question word, end with уу or үү, chosen by the vowels of the verb.
The short answer is the verb itself: Хийсэн. "Yes, I have." or Хийгээгүй. "No, I haven't." (lesson 54).
The particle follows the last word of the question, not the question word. Compare the present Чи хаана байна вэ? "Where are you?" (байна ends in a vowel, so вэ) with the past Чи хаана байсан бэ? "Where were you?" (байсан ends in н, so бэ).
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Question particles · The four Mongolian pasts
Mongolian has two "where" words. хаана asks about the place where something is or happens: Хаана байсан бэ? "Where were you?" хаашаа asks about a direction, "where to": Хаашаа явсан бэ? "Where did you go?" The answer to хаашаа usually has руу or рүү: Зах руу явсан.
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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