Brief guide to pronouncing Mongolian names

Some of you are trying your best to make heads or tails of these Mongolian names. I forget that I've been in Mongolia struggling with these names for six years now. So to help you with some names that you find often in this blog, I am posting this guide.

But first, let me make some observations. Because Mongolians vowels can be quite different from American English vowels some of the pronunciations won't be quite accurate. But just say them with confidence. Like someone once told me with pronouncing Bible names, "Just say them with confidence and no one will challenge you about it." Also, the r in Mongolian is a trilled r much like one would encounter in the Spanish language. So say all the r that you see as if you were trying to pronounce a Spanish name. Also, the a should be like a in father.

Here's a list. The '-' will separate syllables and a '!' will indicate which syllable should be stressed. If there is no '!' in the name, stress the first syllable.

Buren = boo - ren
Sonin = sun - ing
Ganpurev = gam - per - ev
Ulzee = ull - zee!
Ganaa = gan - aa!
Bilgee = bil - gay!
Enkhee = ink - hay!
Bayambaa = be - im - baa!
Mandaa = man - daa!
Dashgaa = dash - gaa!
Tungaa = tone - gaa!
Ganbold = gam - bold

I think that covers everyone. I'll try to put together another update for these folks and post it soon.

I wrote two other attempts at pronouncing Mongolian names back in June and May. I think that reading all three together would be more confusing than helpful but am posting the links in case it helps you. Over the next few weeks, I will try to pull all this together and present one definitive guide and update. Pray for me.