Goal: Name the herders' animals.
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Download the Mongolian audio course24 audio lessons · MP3 · yours to keepArriving at Dulmaa's camp
We arrive at dusk. Three gers stand in a valley white with new snow, smoke rising straight up from their stove pipes, and the animals are coming home: sheep and goats in a slow grey river, horses on the slope, black long-haired yaks by the frozen stream.
Grandma Dulmaa is waiting at the door in a blue deel. She hugs Nomin for a long time, then looks at me, smiles, and asks the question every traveller hears on arrival.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| мал | livestock |
| таван хошуу мал | the five kinds of herders' livestock |
| адуу | horses (as a herd) |
| үхэр | cattle; cow |
| тэмээ | camel |
| хонь | sheep |
| ямаа | goat |
| сарлаг | yak |
| зуугаад | about a hundred |
| хориод | about twenty |
| Говь | the Gobi |
| үс | hair; урт үстэй long-haired |
| тоолох | to count |
| Сайн явж ирэв үү? | Did you have a good journey? |
Herders speak of таван хошуу мал, "the five muzzles of livestock": the five kinds of animals of the steppe. Put a name in the genitive and you can talk about the animal's meat or milk.
| Animal | Mongolian | Genitive in use |
|---|---|---|
| horses | адуу | адууны мах (horse meat) |
| cattle, including yaks | үхэр | үхрийн мах (beef) |
| camels | тэмээ | тэмээний сүү (camel's milk) |
| sheep | хонь | хонины мах (mutton) |
| goats | ямаа | ямааны сүү (goat's milk) |
Look at two of the genitives: үхэр loses its second vowel (үхрийн), and хонь gives хонины.
A number stands before the noun and the noun stays singular (lesson 22): зуун хонь "a hundred sheep", арван үхэр "ten cattle". To round a number off, add –аад / –оод / –ээд / –өөд: зуугаад хонь "about a hundred sheep" (with a linking г after the long vowel), хориод ямаа "about twenty goats".
In a list, the ending goes on the last item only. хонь ends in a soft sign and takes –той, like морь: хоньтой "having sheep". The opposite is –гүй: Бид тэмээгүй. "We have no camels."
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian numbers · The comitative case · The genitive case
хошуу means "muzzle, snout", so the herd is counted by its muzzles. Mongolia has far more animals than people: tens of millions of sheep, goats, cattle, horses and camels for about three and a half million inhabitants. Of the five, the horse is the most honoured, while goats bring in money with their cashmere, ноолуур.
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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