A Primer for Colloquial Tibetan

Publisher: Karmapa International Buddhist Institute
Date: 1993
Pages: 105In the curriculum of the Karmapa Institute three months altogether are devoted to learning daily spoken Tibetan. Two books deal with this subject. Beginners study the book Colloquial 1 during the whole first semester of the first level. On the second level the book Colloquial 2 is studied for one month. All the remaining time is spend on acquiring skills in the classical language.
Though the emphasis is on being learned in classical Tibetan and becoming a translator still it is meaningful to learn spoken Tibetan in order to be able to communicate with Tibetans in daily life. Most of the students in KIBI meet Tibetans either while travelling in Nepal, India, and Sikkim, or in Europe during lama visits. Moreover, nowadays Tibetan teachers explain Dharma mixing spoken language into the classical. That is another reason why it is necessary to learn spoken Tibetan.
The purpose of this book is to enable you to converse in Tibetan. No prior knowledge of Tibetan is needed.