Tours to Mongolia are one of our favorite things to do at Young Pioneer Tours, be it passing through on the Trans-Mongolian Railway, taking part in the Nadaam Festival, doing a bit of Mongolian Wrestling, or simply chilling in the Gobi Desert.

Whilst many people (particularly in Korea) see their country as unique (and their tongue as a language isolate), many people believe Koreans and Mongolians are in fact related people.

Mongolian is the national language of Mongolia, and is an official language in large swaths of Inner Mongolia (the Chinese province). In case you need to know the differences between Inner and Outer Mongolia, we’ve got you covered.

It is spoken by roughly 5 million people, and in Mongolia is written in the Cyrillic script (which it adopted after the implementation of communism). There is also a traditional Mongolian script that shares similarities with Machu (a whole other story).

So, that’s the background on the Mongolian language, but how about a few helpful tips, like how to say ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’ in Mongolian? Let’s get started….

How do you say hello in Mongolian?

Hello – Сайн уу – Sain uu

Goodbye – Баяртай- bayarte

Thank you – Баярлалаа – bayarlalaa

So that takes care of some essential greetings and pleasantries in the Mongolian language. But let’s get onto some real essentials: how do you order a beer in Mongolian?

Can I get two beers? – Би хоёр шар айраг авах боломжтой? – Bi khoyor shar airag avakh bolomjtoi?

We realize that might be a bit of a mouthful, so it might be easier to just learn the word for beer, and hold up the relevant amount of fingers.

Beer/s – шар айраг –shar airag

So, that is our very bite-sized introduction to speaking a bit of Mongolian. But to truly practise, we suggest coming on one of our tours to Mongolia!