New Plan Tibetan Grammar and Translation
| By Pema Chhinjor | Places to Purchase: |
| Published by Paljor Publications | |
| 1998 - 196 pages | |
| ISBN : 818623019X |
Summary
Short but content rich introduction to Tibetan grammar. Included are dialogues with translations and a 40 page dictionary. This book is good for quick grammar reference, but lacks a key to the exercises.
Review
In this book basic grammar is presented in a systematic way, using methods based on the author's 20 years experience teaching Tibetan. The structure and flow of this book is quite good. It starts with the alphabet and moves on to cover the basic grammar. Two intermediate dialouges with translations are included as well as a 40 page dictionary. There are many translation exercises throughout the book, and that takes me to the biggest flaw of this book. There is no key to these exercises! You will never know if your translation is correct unless you have someone correct it for you. For me this was not a problem, because I have a teacher and we used these exercises as my homework.There are two tapes available for this book. I do not have them, but I am sure they are well worth having. This is even more important for the beginner, since most words and sentences are not presented with the English phonetic equivalent.
I have found this book handy for looking something up quickly. For example, if I need to know what Agentive particle is used after a certain suffix, this is the book I will reach for.
In conclusion, this is a good book for learning the basic grammar and to use as a quick grammar reference. The vocabulary is quite extensive and the dictionary covers many basic words. The only thing missing is the key to the exercises.