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 Good for spoken Tibetan, but unpolished Jul 27, 2010
I've been studying Tibetan for 2 months intensively and so this was the fifth textbook in a row that I've gone through (after a small locally produced one from Lhasa by Ellen Bartee, Goldstein's "Essentials of Modern Lit. Tibetan", Wilson's "Translating Buddhism from Tibetan" and finally Preston's "How to Read Classical Tibetan
Vol. 1"), and I have to say that comprehensive and practical as this book is, it was by far my least favorite.
The main thing to know is that the overwhelming emphasis here is on the spoken/auditory portion of the book, and a colloquial/idiomatic form of Tibetan. If you are aiming for an understanding of literary Tibetan this is utterly the wrong book (see Goldstein instead), and if your interest is more specifically in Classical Tibetan this book will be totally useless (instead see Wilson and then Preston's two excellent volumes).
Some things are done very well here, and others not so much, so let me break it down that way.
On the positive side:
(1) A huge vocabulary of some 2000+ words, not to mention a two-way glossary (most textbooks only have Tibetan-English glossaries)
(2) Audio recordings of all the major dialogues at the beginning of each lesson and the longer readings, great for learning the correct pronunciation of Lhasa-style Tibetan and for getting an ear for listening to native speakers.
(3) Answer keys, supplementary online material, etc., as mentioned by other reviewers.
(4) The authors obviously have a great love for their subject, and the book includes lots of cultural information on Tibetan beliefs and customs, maps of the country, lengthy discussions of different dialect groups and so on. This is much appreciated and if this is your first introduction to Tibetan culture in general you will certainly learn a lot.
Aggravating Features:
(1) The written portion of the book (that is, ignoring the audio recordings) is sloppy in many, many ways, and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this. The book is nicely divided into 41 short and digestible lessons (almost always under 10 pages each). These begin with a dialogue in Tibetan, and in the more advanced lessons often a short reading as well, followed by a vocabulary section relating to these readings. Problem: often key vocabulary words seem to be missing in these sections. More annoying, new words seem to be somewhat randomly introduced into the vocabulary sections as you go, with no context whatsoever and no practice exercises to help you learn them. Sometimes, entire huge lists of vocabulary will be introduced that have no relation whatsoever to the preceding dialogue, e.g. a lesson on going to the doctor is suddenly followed by a list of the Tibetan words for the 30-40 most common animals in Tibet (this isn't a direct example, I've forgotten the particular instances, but it is representative). Is this really going to help a beginner? The "Civilization" sections found at the end of most lessons suffer from a similar unrealistic bent, suddenly introducing the names of the 20 or so biggest rivers in Tibet, or something similar. Not that this information is 'bad,' but is it really of any use to someone trying to gain a functional grasp of the language? I would say not.
(2) The readings introduced in the lessons also seem to have just been thrown in. So in a lesson where the main object is a dialogue that illustrates the situation of having a car breakdown and looking for accommodation, suddenly there is a reading drawn from Tibetan folk stories. Again, the reading/information isn't 'bad', but where is the consistency? The vocabulary section which follows then has you simultaneously memorizing words for 'gasoline' and for 'ritual brass butter lamp container' or something along these lines. Further, some of the translations for the readings are missing entire lines of text - not a big deal if you already know the language, but a frustration for someone trying to puzzle through it for the first time.
(3) The system of transliteration is a headache. Like many authors, these ones felt the need to introduce their own new system to 'improve' upon existing ones. Thus 'Dorje' a common name and ritual implement, which is pretty much pronounced the way you'd think, is now rendered 'Torce.' Shigatse, Tibet's second-largest city, is now spelled with a Z. How is this helping anyone? The new system is anything but intuitive. Further, it diverges from the Standardized systems used in most other textbooks and essentially every scholarly work and translation, so if you move on to any of those you will have to learn the standard systems of transliteration anyway!
(4) Following these dialogue/reading/vocabulary portions of each lesson, there are dense and difficult explanations of grammatical terms or aspects (sometimes related to what you've just been reading, sometimes not), along with some sentences that illustrate their use. Problem: these many sentences illustrating key grammar have no corresponding vocabulary sections telling you what individual words mean (and often new vocab is introduced here), and no interlinear translation, so it's difficult to look up words in the glossary at the back on your own.
(5) As someone else pointed out, the book seems in dire need of a classroom instructor and many further exercises to supplement these numerous faults, and so as a self-learner I found it frequently frustrating.
Overall this is still a worthy contribution to a very small field (Tibetan language instruction),the high quality auditory part of the book making it the best modern textbook for Spoken Tibetan. In spite of this, the 'book' (written) portion especially has a very unpolished and somewhat careless feel to it, despite its depth. It is in need of a good once over from an editor, and more consistency within the lessons' vocabulary sections and between dialogues and readings. But if you're looking to learn Spoken Tibetan it will be a huge resource - and in any case you don't really have many other options!
Recommended, with the above qualifications.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Great introduction to Tibetan Jan 18, 2010
This is a great textbook for spoken and written Tibetan. The dialogues are useful and the cds that go along with them are very good. They start with a slow reading of the text, and then go at a more conversational speed, thus your ears can get used to Tibetan step-by-step using the cds. The pronunciation of Lhasa Tibetan is used throughout the textbook, and it is described in detail at the beginning of the book in the introduction.
The vocabulary always is given in Tibetan script and phonetic transcript. And the grammar sections are clear and concise.
One thing that I really like about this textbook is the way it explains the relationship between spelling and pronunciation. All of the other textbooks on Tibetan that I have seen either don't get into that, or they just explain that the spelling is not phonetic and leave it at that. Few and far between is a Tibetan textbook that actually will explain the details of the spelling system and how that impacts pronunciation, and this one does. Which for anyone trying to learn how to read and write the language, this is fundamental. Thus this book gets 5 stars!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Fantastic Study Guide Dec 18, 2009
This is the best Tibetan language resource on the market - the CDs which are included are fantastic.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Great book for learning Tibetan Aug 07, 2009
Great book. Had used it before in a Tibetan class at a university but lost it. The informative sections in each chapter also helped prepare me when I went over to Dharamsala to study. The author included great colloquial additions!
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Intense detail, linguists will love. Little much for a beginner and the phonetic spelling seems a little weird. May 26, 2009
Love it. CDs are great. slow speed conversations then the same ones at normal speed. Lots of context and description and comparisons to other languages - as a beginning Tibetan student and long time Dharma practitioner, I highly recommend!
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