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AN INTENSIVE TIBETAN LANGUAGE COURSE

NIBS organizes an Intensive Tibetan Language Courses divisible into three successive levels. The First Level is the Novice and Lower Intermediate level. The Second Level is the Intermediate Level and the Third Level is the advanced Level. It is to announce herewith that the first level is going to start from September 1st, 2017 and will run until October 30th, 2017. Following is the short descriptions of the each level.

The First Level: The Novice and Lower Intermediate Level

In this level, This course is laid out for students new to Tibetan and there is no prerequisite. Studying the pronunciation of consonants and vowels will be the foundation of this course. With this, the students will learn the different components of syllable building and the spelling rules quite unique to Tibetan: prefixes, suffixes, second suffixes, superscripts, subscripts, and the folded letters. While reading through The Divine Tree text, we will learn how some root letters changes it sounds and how adding different component to a root letter changes the overall sound of the syllable. We will also learn how the prefix of second syllable, when the first syllable has no suffix in a word changes the sound of word. The Syllabus is as follows:

1. Letters
2. Vowels
3. Superscripts
4.Subscripts
5. Folded Letters
6. Suffixes
7. Second Suffixes
8. Prefixes
9. Reading Tibetan sentences in books and folded manuscripts (peksa)
10. Learning some common Tibetan colloquial sentences and some Technical Buddhist and colloquial words.

Second Level: The Intermediate Level

The Second Level or the Intermediate Level is the course for colloquial Tibetan language in which the students learn to speak Tibetan colloquial language. The basic text book is Manual of Standard Tibetan and many other reference books which the teachers will prescribe as the course progresses. Students are required to have basic reading level to take this course. Areas of grammar that will covered with simple set of relevant vocabulary are: greetings, range of to be verbs, connectors, tenses, agentive particles, possessive particles, locative particles, nominal particles, postposition particles and secondary verbs. The postpositional aspect of Tibetan sentence structure, to be verb ending variations depending on the subject in a sentence and removal of pronoun usage will be covered. Aside from class time practice students will be assigned to listen to short Tibetan audio and video clips to improve their listening skills.

Third Level: The Advanced Level

The Advanced Level or the Third Level is the course for Dharma language which is to understanding the Dharma language (chos skad) written in the Dharma books or peksa. The basic books for this course may be “How to Read Classical Tibetan, Part I and II” and others as prescribed by the teachers.