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Ten Years Tibetan in 10 minutes | ||
Tags: Tibetan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4929 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes  Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 1 of 62 21 June 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged |
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I have always been fascinated with the Tibetan language and culture, and have actually been to Lhasa in recent years.
This language log is an experiment to see how much of the written language I can learn if I only devote ten minutes a day for ten years to this project. It sounds almost insane, but by committed such a small amount of time for over a long period, I think I can avoid the burnout that comes with trying to intensely learn a language in a short period of time. This brings the amount of languages I am actively studying to three. Mandarin, Cantonese, and Tibetan. The Tibetan study is more of a warmer for my more intense language pursuits and also reminds me of the monastic aspects of the polyglot's life. There are a lot more reasons why I am doing this, but let's define goals first. The goal is to be able to read Classical Tibetan in ten years, by devoting no more than ten minutes a day to the project. The goal is not fluency or mastery. Just ability. Today's lesson: I learned and wrote out my first Tibetan letter: ka. I covered over three pages in my notebook as I worked through the stroke order. Writing Tibetan, so far, is considerably easier than writing Chinese characters. Let's see how far I can get with this project. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4929 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 2 of 62 22 June 2011 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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Day 2:
I've spent the same amount of time to write the second character, kha, but was not able to write it with the same ease as the first character, ka. Further investigation tells me that this is the u-chen script and that it is a syllabary, a chart of syllables, and not an alphabet, a list of letters. So these characters represent sounds in the Tibetan language. I wonder how much modern Tibetan and classical Tibetan differ. Stifling the urge to read more... Tomorrow is another day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 3 of 62 22 June 2011 at 3:51am | IP Logged |
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I wish you luck, but I don't think you'll learn to read in only 10 min/day for 10 years. I believe the threshold is well
over that. Sure is a pretty script though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6050 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 4 of 62 22 June 2011 at 10:52am | IP Logged |
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It's awesome you're learning Tibetan...I also have that dream. Good luck!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4929 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 5 of 62 23 June 2011 at 3:06am | IP Logged |
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Day 3:
I learned the third character of the syllabary, ga. It is practically a mirror-image of the second, ka. This is as personal a language odyssey as it can be. I won't speak to any native Tibetans. I won't even learn to speak the language. I am doing this only to be able to read the thoughts of authors who are long dead. As for ten minutes over ten years not being enough to be able to read Classical Tibetan? Definitely true for the entire corpus of Tibetan literature. But I'm not aspiring to be Gene Smith. So to further refine the "goal" as it were, I want to be able to read the entirety of How to Read Classical Tibetan, Volume One: Summary of the General Path by Craig Preston (Paperback - Jun 28, 2005) OR An Introduction to Classical Tibetan by Stephen Hodge OR Translating Buddhism from Tibetan by Joe Wilson (Hardcover - Jan 1, 1992). The interesting thing is limiting myself to only ten minutes a day. As I do more of it, the more reading I'm doing *about* the language. This "extra-curricular" reading helps to enrich my understanding about Tibetan, and makes it more fun to pursue. Perhaps 10 minutes may become the minimum I put in each day. Perhaps I will scatter several 10 minute sessions of focused attention throughout the day. Part of this project is an attempt to apply some of Professor Arguelles' ideas to my own language study. I'm sure many of us have to deal with the issues of wanderlust or becoming an expert about the grammar of a language or spending a lot of time making tools to help us learn languages. All of this can distract us from actually using the language we want to learn. So another part of this project is to be able to focus my wandering linguistic eye on a very focused and achievable goal. Other than retaining the memory of three syllables I have learned so far, I discovered that Tibetan is a tonal language, with only two tones: a high tone and a low tone. Since I will never speak Tibetan, how this knowledge will help my reading is yet to be determined. And once again I find that I spent more time writing this post than I did learning Tibetan. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4929 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 6 of 62 24 June 2011 at 3:53am | IP Logged |
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Day 4:
I learned the new syllable, nga. It is relatively simple to write. The good thing is since my goal is to read the language, I don't have to make so many distinctions between the syllables that to me sound so much alike. With better training, I may be able to distinguish between words, perhaps with a minimal pair exercise. Tibetan is a language that is fascinating because, like Biblical Hebrew, it has been used to record so many religious documents. I came across this unique document. It is a textbook on how to read Tibetan. Its text consists of biblical passages from the New Testament, in Tibetan. For any language learner, it's a fun document because it's a downright bizarre amalgam of three different religious traditions ( judaism, christianity, tibetan buddhism) that encompass three different biblical languages (hebrew, greek, aramaic). http://www.gsungrab.org/pdfs/htrt-ace-e.pdf 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5022 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 62 27 June 2011 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
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This is a very interesting log. I am going to be keenly watching your progress.What a fantastic language to chose for this experiment. I like your reasons for choosing this language. In an ideal world, I would love to be able to read classical tibetan for exactly the reasons you describe.
Please keep posting here, I wish you the best of luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4929 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 8 of 62 27 June 2011 at 10:48am | IP Logged |
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Day 5:
The fifth character, ca, is more rounded that the others. It seems easy to write, but I'm not sure if I have the stroke order right. Just discovered David Curtis' video on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WVKWXkrj84 So now I can hear the pronunciation of the letters I am learning. Also discovered that there are two punctuation marks in Tibetan writing, a dot and a bar. The dot separates syllables; the bar separates lines. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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