# Tibetan phrasebook

Tibetan (བོད་སྐད་ / ལྷ་སའི་སྐད་) is the main language of Tibet, and its accompanying regions and among overseas Tibetan communities around the world. Tibetan is spoken by several million people in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of the Chinese People’s Republic, the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan, as well as the neighboring countries Bhutan (around 4,000 speakers), India (over 124,000 speakers), and Nepal (around 60,000 speakers). Written Tibetan is used as the religious language in the countries where Tibetan Lamaistic Buddhism is practiced (e.g. in Mongolia and parts of China proper). Tibetan communities also exist in Taiwan, Norway, Switzerland and the United States of America. It is an official language in Tibet, as well as in the Tibetan autonomous prefectures of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan, and all road signs in this region are bilingual in Chinese and Tibetan.
This phrasebook is based on the Ü-Tsang dialect of Tibetan, which is the dialect spoken in Lhasa, and the officially-recognised standard version of Tibetan. We have a separate Amdo Tibetan phrasebook for that dialect.

## Pronunciation guide

The Tibetan script is an Indic script related to those of many South and Southeast Asian languages. Like other Indic scripts, it is an abugida, meaning that each letter represents a consonant, and vowels are indicated by modifications to the consonant letter.
While Tibetan spelling in the written language is fairly standard throughout the ages and regions, spoken pronunciation is very diverse and there are many, often mutually incomprehensible, dialects.
In recent times "Lhasa dialect" has been taught to foreigners as a standard. However, there is neither an easy nor a widely agreed standard on how to indicate the phonetics of speaking Tibetan using the Latin alphabet. So be prepared for confusion and fun as you try to pronounce these phrases and hear many different pronunciations from the locals.

### Vowels
#### ཨ

    Like "a" in "alone"; like "a" in "cat" (a).

#### ཷ

    Like "aw" in "paw" (å).

#### ེ

    Like "e" in "bet" (e).

#### ི

    Like "i" in "in" (i).

#### ཱི

    Like "ee" in "seen" (í).

#### ོ

    Like "o" in "so" (ó).

#### ྲྀ

    Like "e" in "father" (ö).

#### ཱུ

    Like "ue" in "glue" (ú).

#### ུ

    Like "oo" in "soon" (ū).

#### ུ

    Like "ee" in "seen" but with rounded lips (ü).

#### ེ

    Like "ay" in "day" (ą).

### Consonants
#### ཀ

    Like "k" in "skill" (k).

#### ག

    Like "g" in "garden" (g).

#### ང

    Like "ng" in "sing" (ng).

#### ཅ

    Like "ch" in "charge" (ç).

#### ཇ

    Like "j" in "jar" (xh).

#### ཉ

    Like "ny" in "canyon" (nj).

#### ཏ

    Like "t" in "stop" (t).

#### ད

    Like "d" in "drop" (d).

#### ན

    Like "n" in "never" (n).

#### པ

    Like "p" in "spot" (p).

#### བ

    Like "b" in "beat" (b).

#### མ

    Like "m" in "mighty" (m).

#### ཙ

    Like "ts" in "weights" (c).

#### ཛ

    Like "ds" in "adds" (x).

#### ཡ

    Like "y" in "you" (j).

#### ཟ

    Like "z" in "zoo" (z).

#### ཞ

    Like "s" in "treasure" (zh).

#### ར

    Must be trilled - just like Italian "r" (r).

#### ས

    Like "sa" in "sand" (s).

#### ཤ

    Like "sh" in "shut" (sh).

#### ལ

    Like "l" in "lonely" (l).

### Common diphthongs
#### ཁ

    Like "k" in "kill" (kh).

#### ཆ

    Like "ch h" in "punch hard" (çh).

#### ཐ

    Like "t" in "time" (th).

#### ཕ

    Like "p" in "pit" (ph).

#### ཚ

    Like "ts h" in "fights hard" (ţh).

## Phrase list

Some phrases in this phrasebook still need to be translated. If you know anything about this language, you can help by plunging forward and translating a phrase.

### Basics
#### Hello.

    (བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།) Tashi delek.

#### Hello. (informal)

    De-po

#### How are you?

    Khye-rang ku-zug de-po yin-pe

#### Fine, thank you.

    De-po yin. Thug je che.

#### What is your name?

    Khye-rang gi tshen-la ga-re zhu-gi yod? (polite) Khye rang gi ming ga re yin (informal)

#### My name is ______ .

    Ngai ming ___ yin.

#### Nice to meet you.

    Khye-rang jel-ney ga-po joong

#### Please.

    Thuk-je zig

#### Thank you.

    Thuk-je-che (ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ།)

#### You're welcome.

   Yin dang yin

#### Yes.

    Re (རེད།)

#### No.

    Ma re (མ་རེད།)

#### Excuse me

    gong-pa-ma-tsom / gong-ta

#### I'm sorry.

    Gong dag

#### Goodbye

    Chagpo nang, as in take care. Kha lay shug (said to other person if they are staying). kha lay pheb (said to other person if they are going)

#### I can't speak Tibetan [well]

    nga pö-kay [yag-po] kyab gi mey

#### Do you speak English?

    khye-rang in-ji-kay she gi yö pey?

#### Is there someone here who speaks English?

    dhir inji-kay shenyan yö pey.

#### Help!

    Rog pa je

#### Look out!

    Phar toe

#### Good morning.

    ngadro deleg

#### Good evening.

    gondro deleg

#### Good night.

    Sim shag nang

#### I don't understand.

    Ngai she gyi med. Ha kho gi mey.

#### Where is the toilet?

    Sang chod gawa yö rey.

### Numbers
#### ༡

    chig

#### ༢

    nyi

#### ༣

    sum

#### ༤

    zhi

#### ༥

    nga

#### ༦

    drug

#### ༧

    dun

#### ༨

    gyey

#### ༩

    gu

#### ༡༠

    chu

#### ༡༡

    chu chig

#### ༡༢

    chu nyi

#### ༡༣

    chu sum

#### ༡༤

    chu zhi

#### ༡༥

    chob nga

#### ༡༦

    chu drug

#### ༡༧

    chu dun

#### ༡༨

    chu gyey

#### ༡༩

    chu gu

#### ༢༠

    nyi shu

#### ༢༡

    nyi shu tsa chig

#### ༢༢

    nyi shu tsa nyi

#### ༢༣

    nyi shu tsa sum

#### ༣༠

    sum chu

#### ༤༠

    zhib chu

#### ༥༠

    ngab chu

#### ༦༠

    drug chu

#### ༧༠

    dun chu

#### ༨༠

    gyey chu

#### ༩༠

    gub chu

#### ༡༠༠

    gya

#### 1000

    chig tong

### Time
#### Now

    da ta

#### After

    Jē la

#### Before

    göng ma

#### Morning

    shok-pa

#### Moon

    nyin-gung

#### Evening

    gong-dag

#### Night

    tsen mo

#### Midnight

    tshen gung

#### Clock time
##### 1AM

    tshen la tchhu tshö chig pa

##### 2AM

    tshen la tchhu tshö nyi pa

##### 1PM

    tchhu tshö chig pa

##### 2PM

    tchhu tshö nyi pa

#### Duration

du ring

##### Minute(s)

    kar ma

##### Hour(s)

    tchhu tshö

##### Day(s)

    nyi ma

##### Week(s)

    za khor

##### Month(s)

    da wa

##### Year(s)

    lo

#### Days
##### today

    དེ་རིང་ (de ring)

##### yesterday

    ཁ་སང་ (kha sang)

##### tomorrow

    སང་ཉིན་ (sang nyin)

##### last week

    གཟའ་འཁོར་སྔོན་མ་ (za khor ngön ma)

##### next week

    གཟའ་འཁོར་རྗེས་མ་ (za khor jey ma)

##### Sunday

    གཟའ་ཉི་མ་ (za nyi ma)

##### Monday

    གཟའ་ཟླ་བ་ (za da wa)

##### Tuesday

    གཟའ་མིག་དམར་ (za mi mar)

##### Wednesday

    གཟའ་ཧླག་པ་ (za hlag pa)

##### Thursday

    གཟའ་ཕུར་བུ་ (za phur pu)

##### Friday

    གཟའ་པ་སངས་ (za pa sang)

##### Saturday

    གཟའ་སྤེན་པ་ (za pen pa)

#### Months

When referring to months, the Tibetans distinguish between their own calendar and the internationally used calendar. For the purposes of this phrasebook we only want to refer to the latter and this is quite easy, since it follows the pattern: "foreigner-month-<number 1-12>-pa" ཕྱི་ཟླ་<xx>པ་ chhi da <xx> pa
The numbers are listed above. The only exception is for January, because the Tibetan for 'first' is not chig pa but དང་པོ་ dang po, so:

##### January

    chhi da dang po

##### February

    chhi da nyi pa

##### March

    chhi da sum pa

##### April

    chhi da zhi pa

##### May

    chhi da nga pa

##### June

    chhi da drug pa

##### July

    chhi da dun pa

##### August

    chhi da gyey pa

##### September

    chhi da gu pa

##### October

    chhi da chu pa

##### November

    chhi da chu chig pa

##### December

    chhi da chu nyi pa

#### Writing time and date
### Colors
#### Color

    ཚོན་མདོག་ tseun dok

#### Blue

    སྔོན་པོ་ ngeun po

#### Yellow

    སེར་པོ་ ser po

#### Green

    ལྗང་ཁུ་ jang koo

#### Red

    དམར་པོ་ mar po

#### Brown

    སྨུག་པོ་ mook po

#### Black

    ནག་པོ་ nak po

#### Orange

    ལི་ཝང་ li wang

#### White

    དཀར་པོ་ kar po

### Transportation
#### Directions
##### Street

    Lam kha

##### Right

    Ye-la

##### Left

    Yon-la

##### Straight

    kha thug

##### North

    Jang chog la

##### South

    lho chog la

##### East

    shar chhog la

##### West

    nub chhog la

#### Taxi
### Money

How Much
Ga-Tsod
Yuan
Gor-mo
1-Yuan
Gor-mo Chik

### Eating
#### Fruits

    sching tog

#### Vegetables

    tsel

#### Apple

    ku shu

#### Breakfast

    zhog dzha

#### Lunch

    nyi gung kha lag

#### Supper

    gpong dro kha lag

#### Chicken

    dzha scha

#### Beef

    Kang scha

#### Meat

    tshag scha

#### Fish

    nya scha

#### Cheese

    chur wa

#### Egg

    go nga

#### Salad

    drang tsel

#### Bread

    ba lap

#### Rice

    dre

#### Noodles

    thuk pa

#### Bon appetit!

    ཞལ་ལག་མཉེས་པོ་ནང་གོ། shelak nye po nang ko

#### delicious

    ཞིམ་པོ་ སྤྼོ་པོ་(H) shimpo t(r)opo (H)

#### meal

    གསོལ་ཚིགས་ sol tsi'

#### meal, food

    ཁ་ལག (NH) ཞལ་ལག (H) kalak, shelak