Learning Practical Tibetan

Although there are some inaccuracies in this book, there are far fewer in number than in all the other Tibetan phrase books. This book is by far the best of the lot and will allow one to have some quite reasonable conversations with Tibetans.

This is a very useful book. It is basically a phrase book, but I also gives word-by-word translation, and so you know how the sentences are made. Tapes are also useful. It is very practical in outlook, and frankly it could have been better with theoretical description of sound and tone marks - those who don't care can just skip them.

Unless you get the audio forum set that has over 2 dozen tapes & several books, this book is the best thing to get you up to speed with Tibetan pronunciation and vocab. Very useful and user friendly, with lots of vocab and clear instruction, as the other reviewers have mentioned. With casual effort, you can make good use of the book, however the more time you put in with it, the more you will be rewarded in learning Tibetan.

I first read a glowing review of this book from Columbia University and decided to buy it. It's a wonderful book in its own right and especially good when you purchase the accompanying tapes. I used the book when I was in Nepal with great success, and imagine my surprise when I saw many Tibetans with the same book! They told me it helped them to learn English. By far better than the confusing Goldstein alternative (lonely planet), I thanks the authors for filling a gap with such a worthy product.

I am only writing this review, as I feel the honourable person who gave this book one star was a little harsh. I learned spoken Tibetan from this book and I have since used it to teach many other people. I have found it to be very useful - I love the tapes, well-designed, well-arranged. Tons of useful vocab. If you know even half of what is in this book, then you can get by very comfortably with speaking Tibetan in Tibet. Sure, someone who wants to learn grammar might do better with something else, but for 'Practical Tibetan', this book is tops.