A Tibetan textbook for beginners who want to learn Lhasa Tibetan dialect, which is widely believed to be the standard language of Tibet.

A Beginning Textbook of Lhasa Tibetan with free CDs or audio mp3 files downloadable from below

by Ellen Bartee & Nyima Droma
Paperback: 269 pages
Language: English
Publisher: China Tibetology Publishing House
Editions: First Edition (2000), Second Edition (2017)

The purpose of this book is to teach students to speak Lhasa Tibetan. This book does not provide any Tibetan transliteration of Latin. We encourage students to learn the Tibetan language as soon as possible, rather than the Tibetan transliteration of Latin. The Tibetan transliteration of Latin was introduced during the time when Tibetan script couldn’t be produced in the typewriter. In today's computer era, when the typewriter has entered the museum, the Tibetan transliteration system should also withdraw from the historical stage, ending its historic mission, and restore the real Tibetan writing system for people.

A beginner, after learning this book, basically can carry on the daily Tibetanspeaking, using Lhasa dialect.

This book was completed under a cooperation between yalasoo and SIL (the Summer Institute of Linguistics).

The publication of the book was funded by the Chinese Tibetology Publishing House.

Download or to listen  the audio of the book online from here:

lesson 1    lesson 2     lesson 3     lesson 4     lesson 5     lesson 6

lesson 7     lesson 8     lesson 9      lesson 10    lesson 11     lesson 12

lesson 13    lesson 14     lesson 15      lesson 16     lesson 17     lesson 18