COURSE OVERVIEW
The book you are currently reading is designed to aid Peace Corps trainees in language acquisition. It is designed to coincide with classroom instruction from Mongolian language teachers using a Competency Based Curriculum. The objective of the CBC model is for students to acquire language competencies that they may later apply to specific situations. Competencies are gained by practicing dialogues and learning vocabulary specific to functions. We chose competencies based on what we believe are the most useful words and phrases to help you adjust to life in Mongolia.
This book is not designed for self-instruction by persons unfamiliar with the language. However, after using it in conjunction with language classes, you will grow accustomed to Mongolian, thereby making the book practical for independent study. This most recent addition has a variety of primers and supplementary material included, and thus should prove to be useful for many months after you finish your Pre-Service Training.
Learning Mongolian is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. The grammar, pronunciation, alphabet, and colloquial speech are very different from their English counterparts. Do not be discouraged. Mongolians will appreciate and encourage your acquisition of the language, and proper study of Mongolian will allow you to better integrate with your future communities, counterparts, agencies, and the random cab driver that decides to tell you all the problems he has with the way Mongolia is developing. There is a saying in Mongolian that is roughly translated as
The Mongolian language (in Mongolian script: Monggol kele, Mongol kele; in Mongolian Cyrillic: , Mongol khel) is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China. In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect, written in Cyrillic (and at times in Latin for social networking), is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, the language is more dialectally diverse and is written in the traditional Mongolian script. In the discussion of grammar to follow, the variety of Mongolian treated is Standard Khalkha Mongolian (i.e., the standard written language as formalized in the writing conventions and in the school grammar), but much of what is to be said is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar.
Mongolian is spoken in: Mongolia
Mongolian is also called: Central Mongolian, Halh, Khalkha Mongolian, Mongol, Halh
