Goal: Report words and thoughts.
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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 keepDulmaa tells an old story
In the evening the wind howls and nobody wants to go out, so Dulmaa feeds the stove and tells stories. Nomin has heard them all a hundred times, and she still listens.
Tonight's story was about Dulmaa's grandfather and his horse, the fastest in the province. A rich man wanted to buy it, and the old man refused.
"Is it true?" I asked. Dulmaa looked at the fire for a long time and said, "I think so."
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| гэж | "saying": closes quoted words or thoughts, like English "that" |
| хэлэх | to say, to tell |
| бодох | to think |
| хариулах | to answer |
| үлгэр | folk tale |
| түүх | story; history |
| үнэн | true; the truth |
| баян | rich |
| зарах | to sell |
| аймаг | province |
English introduces reported words with "that" or with quotation marks: "She said that the tea was ready." Mongolian gives the words first, then гэж, then the verb of saying or thinking.
гэж is not a conjunction. It is the verb гэ– "to say" with the converb –ж of lesson 84, so it means literally "saying". "Цай бэлэн" гэж хэлсэн is "she said, saying 'the tea is ready'". It closes the quoted words like a closing quotation mark you can hear.
Because the words are quoted, nothing in them changes: no change of tense, no change of person. English says "he said he would come"; Mongolian keeps the exact form the speaker used, ирнэ "I will come".
The same is true of orders and suggestions: Номин "Явъя" гэж хэлсэн. "Nomin said, 'Let's go.'"
гэж goes with any verb of speaking or thinking. The ones you need most are these three:
| Verb | With гэж | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| хэлэх | … гэж хэлэх | to say that |
| бодох | … гэж бодох | to think that |
| хариулах | … гэж хариулах | to answer that |
The person you speak to goes in the dative-locative, usually before the quoted words:
Put the question word юу in front of гэж. Because the sentence contains a question word, it ends in бэ or вэ, not уу:
When you meet гэж in a sentence, look to its left: everything back to the start of the quote is what somebody said or thought. Then read on to the right to find out who said it and how.
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Complex sentences: гэж and the -х clause · Mongolian converbs
Mongolian has two words where English often uses one. үлгэр is a folk tale, with talking animals, heroes and magic horses. түүх is a story that happened, and also history itself: Монголын түүх is the history of Mongolia. Dulmaa's story about her grandfather is a түүх, and that is why Limba asks whether it is true.
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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