Learning Tibetan... any experience? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Learning Tibetan... any experience?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

akprocks
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5286 days ago
178 posts - 258 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: German

Message 9 of 10

25 September 2011 at 6:35am | IP Logged

Check out this thread it has a nice pdf link on the first page

Edited by akprocks on 25 September 2011 at 6:35am
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davidwelsh
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5529 days ago
141 posts - 307 votes

Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French
Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin

Message 10 of 10

25 September 2011 at 9:02am | IP Logged

Wilco wrote:

David, thank you for sharing your experience!

My goal is to communicate with Tibetan people and to read modern publications in
Tibetan. Since I don't have an interest (for now) in reading the classical texts, I
guess I'll start with the "standard" variant of Tibetan.

But I am quite puzzled by the different dialects, though. Are the dialects only oral,
or can they be used to write?

And I was wondering what is the level of register (colloquial or formal) and the
dialects used in the Tibet Times and on
Radio Free Asia?

I would also like to hear from you about the learning materials. I have read only good
things about Tournadre and Dorje's "Manual of Standard Tibetan", so I guess this will
be my starting book. Any other good books or audio resources out there I should use?

Glad to be of help:)

Tibetan dialects are so different from each other that they're more or less different languages. I don't know if they're written to any great extent. In terms of older texts, the same Classical Tibetan is used throughout Tibet. Most Tibetans from outside Central Tibet will be able to communicate in "standard" Tibetan though - a bit like almost all Chinese will be able to communicate in Mandarin regardless of their own dialect.

As for whether colloquial or honorific language is used on the websites you linked to, I'm not sure. I had a quick look, but I didn't recognise any words I could identify as being exclusively honorific or colloquial.

The Manual of Standard Tibetan is excellent, and well-suited for self-study, so I'd definitely recommend that. I've had a bit of a look at Fluent Tibetan, but I haven't used it actively myself so I can't really give an informed opinion. On the summer course I took we used Colloquial Tibetan by Tsetan Chonjore, which is a really good book. The disadvantages are that it's really designed for classroom study rather than self-study, and it doesn't come with audio. The grammar explanations are really good though, so it might be worth considering as a supplement to the manual. If you're interested in the modern literary language, you might also want to check out Melvyn Goldstein's Essentials of Modern Literary Tibetan. As far as dictionaries go, it's Goldstein's English-Tibetan and Tibetan-English dictionaries you want to get.

Edited by davidwelsh on 25 September 2011 at 9:05am
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