Goal: Mark the topic and 'his/her'.
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Our nearest neighbours live three kilometres away, which here means "next door". This afternoon a rider came over the hill, and Nomin knew him at once by his horse: it was Sükhee, the herder from the ger by the river.
Nomin told me everything about his family. His wife is the district doctor, his two sons go to school in the district centre, his horse is fast and his dog is fierce. Tomorrow we are going to visit them.
| Mongolian | English |
|---|---|
| нь | his, her, its, their (after the noun); also "as for" |
| хөрш | neighbour |
| гэр бүлтэй | married, with a family |
| эхнэр | wife |
| нөхөр | husband |
| догшин | fierce (of a dog) |
| уулзах | to meet |
| минь | my (after the noun) |
| чинь | your, familiar (after the noun) |
| маань | our (after the noun) |
| тань | your, polite (after the noun) |
нь is a small separate word that follows a noun and links it to a person or thing already mentioned. It has one form for "his", "her", "its" and "their".
Notice the order. English puts "his" in front of the noun; нь comes after it, like the reflexive ending of lesson 82, but it is written as a separate word and never changes its shape.
Very often the owner is named first in the genitive, and нь follows the thing owned. English says it once ("Sükhee's horse"); Mongolian says it twice, and this sounds completely natural.
The same pattern appears in Батын багш нь хэзээ ирсэн бэ? "When did Bat's teacher arrive?"
нь has a second job: it picks out a word and sets it against another, like English "as for" or a stressed word.
Nobody owns anything in this sentence: нь simply balances the two halves. In Морь нь хурдан, нохой нь догшин it does both jobs at once: "his horse is fast, his dog is fierce", with the horse and the dog set against each other.
нь belongs to a small set of words that follow the noun and name its owner:
| After the noun | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| минь | my | Ах минь малчин. (My elder brother is a herder.) |
| чинь | your (familiar) | Ээж чинь хаана байна вэ? (Where is your mother?) |
| маань | our | Гэр маань том. (Our ger is big.) |
| тань | your (polite) | Нөхөр тань ирсэн үү? (Has your husband come?) |
| нь | his, her, its, their | Эхнэр нь эмч. (His wife is a doctor.) |
They are warm and very common in speech, above all for family members. Ах минь says the same as миний ах, "my elder brother", with a little more affection.
The reflexive ending (морио, гэртээ) means "the subject's own". нь points to someone else who has been mentioned: Номин гэртээ байна (Nomin is at her own home), but Сүхээ ирсэн. Гэр нь голын хажууд. (Sükhee has come. His ger is by the river.)
Go deeper in the grammar guide: Mongolian final particles: нь, шүү, бий, аа · No articles in Mongolian
In the countryside you count households, not houses. айл is a family with its ger, and хөрш айл is the neighbouring household, even when it is several kilometres away across the steppe. Neighbours help each other with the herds, share news and visit often, so knowing who lives in which айл is part of everyday conversation.
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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