3Grammar and explanations
Four letters that begin with a y
Each of these letters is a y sound plus a vowel, written as a single letter:
| Letter | Written | Example |
|---|
| е | ye | ес [yes] nine |
| ё | yo | ёс [yos] custom, etiquette |
| ю | yu | юм [yum] thing |
| я | ya | ямаа [yamaa] goat |
In ес (nine), the vowel you hear after the y is closer to ө than to э: that is why nine becomes есөн before a noun (lesson 23). ё is rare, but one very common word has it: хоёр [khoyor] (two).
яс[yas] bone
юу[yuu] what
ы: only inside a word
ы never begins a word. You meet it mostly at the end of words that have а, о or у, in endings: таны [tany] (your), номын [nomyn] (of the book). Lesson 8 tells you how it sounds.
The soft sign ь
ь has no sound of its own, but it changes the consonant in front of it, and with it the whole word:
| Without ь | With ь |
|---|
| тав [tav] five | тавь [tav'] fifty |
| ам [am] mouth | амь [am'] life |
Many ordinary words end in ь: морь [mor'] (horse), хонь [khon'] (sheep). Always copy it; never leave it out.
The hard sign ъ
ъ is much rarer. It stands between a verb and a final я or ё, as in явъя [yavya] (let's go). It adds no sound; it only separates the two parts.
к, ф and щ: letters for borrowed words
к and ф do not occur in words of Mongolian origin. They spell words borrowed from other languages, mostly from Russian, so you can often guess them:
банк[bank] bank
кино[kino] cinema, film
фото[foto] photo
Канад[Kanad] Canada
Франц[Frants] France
щ is the extreme case: it appears only in a few Russian words carried over whole, and you may never need it.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet
4Good to know
Mongolian writes foreign names in Cyrillic, exactly as it hears them: Канад (Canada), Франц (France), Лимба (Limba). Try it with your own name: write it letter by letter with the table of lesson 1. Many everyday loanwords came from Russian in the 20th century, which is why банк, такси, кино and паспорт look so Russian.
