tibetanlanguage.school

News articles

After you’ve gotten the hang of listening to advanced children’s storybooks in Tibetan, you may want start listening to news articles.

Two Tibetan websites often provide audio recordings of their articles: the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), and Voice of Tibet (VOT). These audio recordings are great for practicing your listening skills. The audio files may be at the top or the bottom of the article. I recommend installing my Audio Control Panel tool (the installation process is basically the same as the more detailed installation instructions given for Tangut Script Renderer) to be able to easily navigate the audio.

Note: this tool selects from 1338 articles about His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 910 articles about Tibet, 1142 articles about the Exile community, 506 articles about China, and 974 articles about international news. This adds up to a grand total of 4870 news articles. It includes all articles with audio ever published by VOT up until July 12th, 2025.

Common features of Tibetan audio

The phrasing of Tibetan news articles typically is slightly different between the text and the audio.

There are several common ways in which Tibetan audio differs from the text it purports to represent, or vice versa:

  1. Saying the same thing using different words
    • Around minute 0:06 of this article, and again at minute 0:22, the audio says སྐུ་འདས་གྲོངས་སུ་གྱུར་བར་ (“that he became dead”, honorific), but the text reads སྐུ་གྲོངས་པར་ (“that he died”, honorific).
    • Around minute 4:05 of the same article, the audio says something like “སྐུལ་འདེབས་པ་བྱེད་དགོས་ཤིག་དགོས་འདུན་སྟོན་འདུག (“…demands they should launch…”), but the text says “སྐུལ་འདེབས་བྱ་དགོས་པའི་དགོས་འདུན་བསྟན་ཡོད། (“…demands they should launch…”). Here, the verb’s tense and evidentiality differ, as does the connection between the quoted verb and the main verb.
    • The clause conjunction ལ་ (“and”) is often replaced with པ་དང་ (“and”) when read out loud, or vice versa.
  2. Adding extra function words of no real import
    • Around minute 0:17 of this article, the audio says ཚོགས་པ་ཁག་དང་། (“groups and”), but the text says ཚོགས་པ་དང་། (“groups and”). The particle ཁག་ is a plural marker.
    • Around minute 0:30 of the same article, the audio says སྐུ་ཕུང་དེ་ཉིད་ (“the (same) remains”), but the text says སྐུ་ཕུང་ (“the remains”). དེ་ཉིད་ is a pronoun.
    • Around minute 3:28 of the same article, the audio says སྐུ་འདས་གྲོངས་སུ་གྱུར་བར་ (“that he became dead”, honorific), but the text says འདས་གྲོངས་སུ་གྱུར་བར་ (“that he became dead”, honorific but slightly less so). སྐུ་ is an honorific marker.
  3. Transitioning into interviews
    • Around minute 0:57 of the same article, the audio says something like “མཁན་པོ་འཇུ་བསྟན་སྐྱོང་ལགས་སུ་བཀའ་འདྲི་ཞུ་པས་ཁོང་གིས་དེ་ལྟར་འགྲེལ་བརྗོད་གནང་གི་འདུག” (“When we asked Khenpo Ju Tenkyong-la, he explained like this…”), but the text says “མཁན་པོ་འཇུ་བསྟན་སྐྱོང་ལགས་ཀྱིས་འདི་ག་རླུང་འཕྲིན་ཁང་ལ་འགྲེལ་བརྗོད་གནང་དོན་དུ།” (“According to the explanation given by Khenpo Ju Ten-kyong-la to this radio station…”). Additionally, the rest of that paragraph and the entire following paragraph are a paraphrased summary of what Khenpo Ju Tenkyong said, and not a faithful transcription of his actual words. The interview goes until 3:22, lasting for more than 2 minutes.

Central Tibetan Administration (CTA): Tibetan, English

The CTA often has both Tibetan and English versions of the same article. Here is a list of 5 pairs of articles that I found in spring 2024:

Note: the CTA’s Tibetan articles always take several minutes to load in my browser.

The CTA’s weekly broadcasts on the TibetTV YouTube channel often read directly from their Tibetan-language articles. For example, this video discusses article two above beginning at minute 8:08, and then discusses article one beginning at minute 8:36. These broadcasts can therefore be used for audio practice. If you don’t readily understand Tibetan, you will have to hunt around to find the matching video for an article based on similarities in their date of publication and the photos used.

YouTube has built-in tools to control playback speed and audio rewinding.

Voice of Tibet (VOT): https://vot.org/

The Voice of Tibet provides audio recordings for many, but not all, of their articles.

The audio recordings on VOT usually only follow the first couple paragraphs of the article, and then diverge entirely into a free-form interview, before wrapping up with the last paragraph of the article. The phrasing of the audio often doesn’t match the article exactly, especially the very first sentence. Nevertheless, it is a very useful tool.

To control playback speed and audio rewinding on the VOT website, you can use my Audio Control Panel program.