Many people assume Mongolian is a challenging language to master.

The truth is that Mongolian presents unique challenges but is entirely approachable for beginners.

Your experience will depend heavily on the learning methods and resources you choose.

English speakers often find the grammar and pronunciation to be the main hurdles.

However, the alphabet is surprisingly straightforward to pick up.

The Mongolian alphabet

The modern Mongolian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet.

This is the same alphabet used in Russian, with two additional letters added to represent specific Mongolian vowel sounds (ө and ү).

Learning to read Cyrillic is actually the easiest part of learning Mongolian.

You can easily memorize the alphabet in a single weekend.

Once you know the letters, you can pronounce almost any written word.

Mongolia also has a beautiful traditional vertical script.

This older script is mostly used for artistic purposes, historical documents, and government seals in the country of Mongolia.

As a beginner, you should strictly focus on learning the Cyrillic alphabet first.

Pronunciation and vowel harmony

Mongolian pronunciation can be tricky for English speakers.

The language includes several deep guttural sounds produced in the back of the throat.

One of the most unique features of Mongolian is its vowel harmony.

Vowel harmony is a strict rule where words can only contain certain types of vowels.

Mongolian vowels are divided into “masculine” (hard) and “feminine” (soft) categories.

If a word’s first vowel is masculine, all other vowels in that word and any added suffixes must also be masculine.

Mongolian grammar and sentence structure

Mongolian sentence structure is completely different from English.

English follows a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order.

Mongolian uses a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order.

This means the verb is always placed at the very end of the sentence.

Mongolian is also an agglutinative language.

Instead of using separate prepositions like “to”, “from”, or “in”, you simply attach suffixes to the end of a word.

This makes the words quite long, but the rules for adding these suffixes are very logical and consistent.

Is Mongolian vocabulary hard?

Mongolian is completely unrelated to English.

Because of this, there are almost no loan words or common roots to rely on.

You’ll need to memorize vocabulary entirely from scratch.

This requires consistent repetition and daily practice.

However, once you learn basic root words, you can easily guess the meaning of new words based on their suffixes.

Many modern words relating to technology and global culture are also borrowed directly from English or Russian.

Regional variations of Mongolian

There are a few different ways Mongolian is spoken depending on where you are.

Khalkha Mongolian is the standard dialect spoken in the independent country of Mongolia.

This is the dialect taught in nearly all language courses and textbooks.

Inner Mongolian is spoken in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China.

Inner Mongolian speakers still use the traditional vertical script in daily life instead of Cyrillic.

The pronunciation and vocabulary in Inner Mongolia are also heavily influenced by Mandarin Chinese.

If your goal is to travel to Ulaanbaatar, you should specifically study the Khalkha dialect.

How to start learning today

The best way to learn Mongolian is through consistent, daily immersion.

Finding quality resources for Mongolian can be challenging compared to languages like Spanish or French.

That’s exactly why we built Talk In Mongolian.

Our platform is the absolute best place to start your journey.

We offer comprehensive lessons covering everything from the Cyrillic alphabet to advanced conversational grammar.

You should begin by learning the sounds of the alphabet and basic greetings.

Don’t worry about memorizing complex grammar rules immediately.

Focus on getting comfortable with the sounds of the language first.

Listen to native speakers as much as possible to tune your ear to the unique pronunciation.