Live & Learn Mongolian
Audio Lessons Did you know? Quite commonly found on the backside of a Mongol baby (until about 2 or 3 years old) can be found a blue birthmark... and this is technically called a Mongolian blue spot! It most often occurs among Mongols, Turks, and other Asian groups, such as the Chinese, Japanese, and especially the Koreans. According to Wikipedia, nearly all East Asian infants are born with one or more of these birthmarks, and yet Mongolia gets the fame with the name! Also, did you know that in this country, they milk horses instead of cows? Check out our culture corner below for more information on what they make out of horse milk. Useful Mongolian phrases Hello - Sen-buy-NOH (draw out the last syllable) What's your name? - Tany ner khen be? My name is ... - Minii ner ... How are you? Sonin yu baina ve? Fine thanks, and you? Sain ta sain baina uu? Thank you - Buy-errr-LAH You're welcome - Zugehr Goodbye - Buy-errr-TEH
Language SynopsisThis windy sounding language is intriguing and a challenge for any lover of languages. Spoken up upwards of 6 million people, mostly within the country and even then, the people are widely spread out throughout and so to get immersed in this language the best place for anyone would be its capital, Ulaanbaatar.
This amazing city creates an out-of-this-world mix of Soviet style buildings, Westernized internet cafes, and of course the expected Oriental atmosphere. English and Russian are also commonly spoken so that helps! The Cyrillic alphabet was introduced as a script for this language in 1946. However while the letters are Cyrillic, the actual pronunciation of those letters is very much different to what one with a knowledge of Cyrillic would expect. As we say, this is a very windy sounding language, so try to pronounce the letters like wind would! So while you will need to know the Cyrillic alphabet for this language, know too that the art of traditional script is making a comeback... vertical writing in a calligraphic style, as you can see to the left.
Learn Mongolian OnlineIf you're familiar with using the internet, a headset, and even skype or voipstunt, then you could be two steps away from learning Mongolian with a native speaker... check out this website for more information on getting in touch with teachers that are available, etc. It could be though that all you find here are students in Mongolia who would like to learn English. Why don't you offer to do a language swap with them... their know-how for yours? Internet Freebies If you know you already love the idea of an online community, here's one where you can swap language skills or get some real-time practice with native speakers... Live Mocha's your place online! Sign up for free and you can get learning and practicing with native speakers right away.
Culture Corner
Cuisine Unfortunately we aren't the biggest fans of Mongolian cuisine, but hey, when you're in Rome...! So if you do go to Mongolia make sure you try the meat dumplings, fermented horse milk, horse cheese and horse milk omelette!
Music
Sports There is plenty to choose from for the guys, but depending on your size you might be better of going either for wrestling or horse racing...
And what is there for girls? Many learn the art of contortionism in this country and here is a video where you can see this being performed... Help Others Live & LearnHave you "been there and done that" with Mongolian? Did you visit the country or where you able to master it in your own country and social circle? Please share your tips and secrets of success with other language learners so that the road to fluency may be paved that much smoother - please use the form below to share your experiences. |
Personally, here are LLL, we much prefer Mongolian music to Chinese traditional music... it seems to have more of a tune to most of the songs and when they play the Ever-buree (a wind instrument made from the horn of an animal) the music can be very reminiscent of jazz! Music with this instrument is very hard to come by though, we looked long and hard in many stores throughout Ulaanbaatar and only found one album dedicated to music played with the Ever-buree!