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Other / Exclamations | | Mongolian term or phrase: чинь | Hi,
In “Colloquial Mongolian” we find the following sentence on p.53: Саарал байшин чинь Төрийн ордон шүү дээ.
My book gives the translation as “Why, that grey building is the state palace.”
I therefore assume that чинь is a device for getting people’s attention and means “Hey” or something.
However, I'm actually interested in the original meaning of чинь here. It seems to me to bear a strong resemblance to чи, the second personal singular pronoun i.e. “you”. Perhaps a better translation in other contexts would be, “Hey, you!” – of course, that would be too abrupt here.
All the best,
Simon
PS Re pronunciation, in the sample sentence there are some words ending in the letter н. Is a final н pronounced like English N or like English NG in "thing", please? |
| SeiTTKudoZ activityQuestions: 2860 ( 3 open) ( 5 closed without grading) Answers: 1
United Kingdom
| Local time: 15:07
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| | English translation:your | Explanation:
It is usually used in the following cases:
- Your house is nice. Байшин чинь гоё юмаа.
Yes, and it is true that the word is used in spoken language to attract people's attention.
PS: Final н pronounced like English N. |
| Selected response from:
  Tsogt Gombosuren
Mongolia
Local time: 22:07
| Grading comment many thanks excellent
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer |
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4 hrs confidence:  peer agreement (net): +1
17 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): -1 common meaning is "your", "yours"
Explanation:
Саарал байшин чинь Төрийн ордон шүү дээ.
1) I would translate this sentence as:
THE grey building is the Government palace.
Besides its common meaning, words "минь, чинь, тань, нь" often reflect that the object referred is a definite object. In this sense these words at times play the function of the English definite article "the", while the word "нэг, нэгэн" at times plays the function of the English indefinite article "a, an". It is a wrong perception that the articles of European languages aren't translated into Mongolian. Article bear a meaning and that meaning IS expressed in Mongolian by means of certain words (like энэ, тэр in addition to the above mentioned) or by other means. Intentionally ignoring an article makes the translation less lively.
2) Pronunciation of end "н": alone it is pronounced as "ng" (actually there's more to say, but explanation will be too extensive). To distinguish the front "н", a vowel or "ь" is added to the end.
| ganaa444
Mongolia
Local time: 22:07
Native speaker of:  Russian
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The translation workplace 
