Comments on: Russian or Mongolian? Help!

By: Tsogoo

Tsogoo — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:03:14 +0000

To Ashley

By: ashley

ashley — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 22:19:11 +0000

this comment is a response to tufshin-

the chinese languages are part of the sino-tibetan language family and mongolian is part of the altaic language family.
they are not related languages, but i’m sure there have been several chinese loan words due to centuries of contact. and i doubt if you know mongolian you’ll understand turkish. it like saying if you learn hindi you’ll understand english (they are both in the indo-european family)

korean officially not in any language family, but the closest possible relative is japanese, which also is an isolated language. both of these langauges have some features related to the altaic family, but no big connection has been made. but there are many chinese loan words in these languages too, the chinese basically dominated east asian literature for centuries.

for the dude:

learn russian and mongolian, the more languages you study the easier it is to learn them.
your brain gets into language learning mode

By: Tsogoo

Tsogoo — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:04:37 +0000

Hello. I’m mongolian. I’m so sorry that, my english level is not good. I recommend you all: never decry other nations or languages!!!
1. Mongolian language is one of the Altaic languages. Members of Altaic language: mongolian, korean, japanese, chinese, turkish. Do you see that, if you completly understood one language then you can understand other member languages.
2. Russian language is diffrent from mongolian language, becuase russian is member of slaviyan languages. Mongolian and Russian language is only same in cyrillic alphabet. But they have little diffrence. In russia has 33 alphabets, mongolia has 35 alphabets.
3. If you said about mongolian language “bitch”, you never learn our great language.
4. Our mongolian people said ” most important three things are language, country border, herd animals”. Because all mongolian historical wars, and fights, livestyles, cultures about their.
5. Many mongolian words in korean language now. For example: juukum (little) - joohon, urenjuk (west or right) - ornozug, abba(daddy) - aavaa etc.
6. In the end I wish you all the best, and I’ll pray to God for give you intellect about mongolians. All korean people think about yourselves: we are great nation, we have culture and history, we have land… But real condition is you are not great nation (remember Mongolian empire, during this time you are our one of the colonies), you have not your own history (your history is same to chinese, may have little diffrent) your culture is same to japanese and chinese, novadays going to americanism, and you haven’t land, because now you are american colony in all industry (politics and economy, millitary, trade…) So are you understand your disgrace? If you want to know more about Mongolia, contact me.

By: Tufshin

Tufshin — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:10:33 +0000

Since your fiance is mongolian, you should learn mongolian. Without learning her native language you would never understand completely her emotional world.

By: peter hanson

peter hanson — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:00:09 +0000

are you crazy? Korean would have to be one of the most amazingly easy langauges. I love it.
I was thinking about some Mongolian/turkish/japanese only cause it relates so closely to korean that they must be good.

But if you’re are into learning out of interest Russian is probably the better choice because it is the most different.

cheers

By: mike

mike — Fri, 02 Jan 2004 10:24:56 +0000

Sain baina uu?
Hm. Both are pretty cool sounding languages. I was in mongolia briefly last year, i was pleasantly surprised by the sound of it. sure, at times i thought it was a bit like Tolkien’s Black Speech, but when spoken softly it sounded rather pleasant. The voiceless “l”’s remind me of welsh, though the nasalization of vowels sounds too much like french which is not a very good thing. hey! at least theres no uvular trills. learn both, or learn mongolian.

By: Josh Skaarup

Josh Skaarup — Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:24:08 +0000

Learn mongolian!

They both share the Cyrillic alphabet, and aren’t that much varried. I plan on learning mongolian, as when I graduate, some friends of mine and I plan to move to Mongolia and become Nomads. And Since I already know cyrillic, I could probably learn the language quite quickly. So I would suggest learning Mongolian first, because:
1) it’s a cool language
2) You’d have bragging rights as one of the very few who speak the language
3) Your wife is mongolian
4) Russian is a bitch to speak!

So go with mongolian, I am!

By: Marios

Marios — Wed, 19 Nov 2003 07:46:18 +0000

I took a quick look at your pro’s con’s list and i looks like the weight is slightly to the russian side to me. I have tried learning russian myself and i can tell u its a difficult language (the pronanciation alone can tie your tongue in a knot) but then again as you say so is mongolian.I myself am greek and I still had problems with Russian, but since you are going to marry a native mongolian I think you should start learning Russian now and over the years of your married life I’m sure you will pick up some Mongolian at least on a common conversable level.so there you go.

ps.Definitly pro to read the Russian classics in their native language (thats why I started learning but I never got there)
so good luck either way!!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:31:38 +0000

It would be interesting to know how close Monglian is to Korean: it certainly is visibly related to Turkish. Vowel harmony is easy: a lot easier than Russian palatalisation/ velarisation. Russian aspect is also quite difficult, and the case system. There are actually a lot of words in common: Russsian bogatyr, hero, is borrowed from Mongolian, and a lot of Mongolian words come from Russian. From a commerical point of view, there are very few competent Mongolian speakers with English as a first language: that does not apply to Russian. Learn Mongolian: but try and pick up a smattering of Russian as well.

By: Solongo

Solongo — Sat, 20 Sep 2003 18:18:10 +0000

Learn Mongolian!!

Well that’s what my mom tells me all the time. Such a shame…don’t even know my own native language. But hey: I say learn Mongolian over stupid Russian.
I know it’s not very practical advice (less than 2 million ppl in the world speak it), but the most important woman in your life does…so learn it!
And then….there’s the party effect…
Bayartai (one of the few words I know)