Goal: Say how you travel.
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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 keepLeaving Ulaanbaatar by car
Thursday, seven in the morning, still dark. Bold's car is waiting downstairs with the engine running. Saraa hands Nomin a thermos of tea, Bat hands Bold a bag of buuz, and Temuulen hands me a list of things to photograph.
Then the city slides away behind us: the ger districts on the hills, the last petrol station, and finally the open road west. Bold wants to know how I travel at home.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| онгоц | plane |
| галт тэрэг | train |
| Бээжин | Beijing |
| хүмүүс | people |
| автобус | bus |
| такси | taxi |
| юугаар | by what? how? |
| хүрэх | to reach, to arrive (at) |
| урт | long |
| заримдаа | sometimes |
| унадаг дугуй | bicycle |
| зөвхөн | only |
To say how you travel, Mongolian puts an ending on the vehicle itself, where English uses "by": –аар / –оор / –ээр / –өөр. This case is called the instrumental: it marks the tool or the means you use.
The vowel of the stem comes back doubled before р: а gives –аар, о gives –оор, э gives –ээр, ө gives –өөр (мөнгөөр "with money"). Words whose vowel is у or ү have no doubled form of their own and borrow –аар and –ээр: автобусаар, хүнээр.
| Word | Instrumental | Note |
|---|---|---|
| автобус | автобусаар | у borrows the а form |
| машин | машинаар | и is neutral; а decides |
| онгоц | онгоцоор | |
| галт тэрэг | галт тэргээр | only the last word changes, and its short э drops |
| такси | таксигаар | a linking г after the final vowel |
| унадаг дугуй | унадаг дугуйгаар | a linking г after й |
| морь | мориор | ь becomes и |
юу + the instrumental gives юугаар "by what, how": Та юугаар ирсэн бэ? "How did you get here?" The answer replaces юугаар with the vehicle: Онгоцоор. "By plane."
In a group of words that names one thing, only the last word takes the ending: галт тэргээр, унадаг дугуйгаар. Look at the last word, never the first, to choose the vowel.
You may already know монголоор ярих "to speak Mongolian". A language is treated as the tool you speak with, so it takes the instrumental too: англи хэлээр "in English".
Go deeper in the grammar guide: The instrumental case · Choosing case endings
There is no railway to Arkhangai. Mongolia's main railway line crosses the country from north to south, linking Russia, Ulaanbaatar and China, so most provinces are reached by road. Long-distance buses leave Ulaanbaatar every day for the province centres, and the last kilometres to a herder's camp are often done by car, motorbike or horse.
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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