Goal: Read в, р, с, х, ц, ч, ш, ж correctly.
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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 reads the menu in the airport café
The taxi is crawling now, and I scroll through the photos on my new phone. One of them is the menu of the airport café, where Nomin bought me a tea while Bat went to find the taxi.
At the time I could not read a word of it. Now I try again: ЦАЙ, СҮҮТЭЙ ЦАЙ, ХУУШУУР, БУУЗ, ШӨЛ. Nomin explains each one with her hands: tea, tea with milk, a flat fried pasty, a steamed dumpling, a soup.
At the bottom, the menu says ЖҮҮС. I sound it out and laugh: juice!
| Mongolian | Letters | English |
|---|---|---|
| хоол | khool | food, meal |
| сүүтэй цай | süütei tsai | milk tea |
| хар цай | khar tsai | black tea (without milk) |
| хуушуур | khuushuur | khuushuur, fried meat pasty |
| бууз | buuz | buuz, steamed meat dumpling |
| шөл | shöl | soup |
| талх | talkh | bread |
| чихэр | chikher | sugar; sweets |
| жүүс | jüüs | juice |
| за | za | all right, OK |
| үйлчлэгч | üilchlegch | waiter, waitress |
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.
Four of these letters are false friends from lesson 1, and four have new shapes. Here is how to say each one:
| Letter | Written | How to say it |
|---|---|---|
| в | v | like v; at the end of a word, softer, between v and w |
| р | r | a rolled or tapped r, as in Spanish or Italian |
| с | s | always s, never the c of "cat" |
| х | kh | a throat sound, like the ch of Scottish "loch" |
| ц | ts | one sound, the ts of "cats", even at the start of a word |
| ч | ch | the ch of "church" |
| ш | sh | the sh of "ship" |
| ж | j | the j of "jam" |
х is the one truly new sound for an English speaker. To find it, say the k of "cook", stop just before your tongue leaves the roof of your mouth, and let the air keep going. You can practise on хоол [khool] (food) and талх [talkh] (bread).
English has ts only inside or at the end of a word, as in "cats". Mongolian puts it at the start: цай is one syllable, not "te-sai". Say "cats-eye", then drop the "ca".
Tap the tip of your tongue once behind your upper teeth, as in Spanish "pero": хуушуур, хар [khar] (black), as in хар цай, black tea. A curious fact: no word of Mongolian origin begins with р.
If you know Russian, forget the Russian zh: Mongolian ж is the j of "jam", and ч is the ch of "church". Compare жүүс [jüüs] and чихэр [chikher].
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian consonants · The Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet
Mongolian milk tea, сүүтэй цай, is usually made with a pinch of salt, not sugar. Хуушуур are the fried pasties everyone eats at the Naadam festival in July, and бууз are steamed dumplings, made by the hundred for the lunar New Year, Tsagaan Sar. You will order them yourself, with full sentences, in lesson 47.
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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