Practice

The Standard Tibetan course on this website is designed for studying grammar. This will give you a theoretical understanding of Tibetan grammatical patterns, but you’ll need to practice what you’ve learned to fully acquire the language.

The Practice section is divided into two parts:

See below for an explanation of the four skills of language acquisition. This website focuses on listening and reading. To practice speaking and writing, I recommend getting a Tibetan teacher.


The Four Skills of Language Acquisition

There are four basic skills involved in language acquisition:

  • listening
  • speaking
  • reading
  • writing

Speaking and writing are active skills because they require you to produce sentences in the language. The best way to improve your speaking and writing skills is to meet native speakers who can help correct your errors and naturalize your speech and writing. For this, I recommend finding a teacher on Esukhia’s list of Tibetan teachers. You won’t get far trying to improve your active language skills by yourself.

Listening and reading are passive skills because they don’t require you to produce any sentences in the language; you simply have to understand what other people are saying or writing. You can still study grammar and improve your vocabulary and passive language skills without a teacher. The lessons on this website explain Standard Tibetan grammar, and the Practice section here will help you improve your passive language skills. A vocabulary section will be added later; in the meantime, I recommend checking out Tibetan101.