Translating Buddhism from Tibetan: An Introduction to the Tibetan Literary Language and the Translation of Buddhist Texts from Tibetan

I am presently using Wilson's book as the primary textbook for an intensive Tibetan language course and am about 1/3 through the course. Having a skilled teacher to explain the grammar, syntax, orthography and doctrinal elements, or to expand upon Wilson's explanations of them is a must. (That's no criticism of Wilson's text, just a fact of language acquisition.) Wilson's text is well structured and detailed, and his explanations are quite lucid and accessible. There are audio files available to help with pronunciation recorded by a native Tibetan speaker. For an American English speaker not used to retroflex Ds and Rs, the recordings are indispensable.The text is intended for those who seek to become skilled translators of literary Tibetan Buddhist texts and commentaries. It is not for those seeking conversational Tibetan skills.Paul Hackett's "Tibetan Verb Lexicon" is intended (by Hackett) as a companion to Wilson. Hackett complements Wilson well.Two weeks into my course, I am making good progress. Wilson's text is a large part of my success thus far.

This is indeed the best textbook on literary Tibetan - especially for students who wish to learn to read Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan . Other 5 star reviews have already provided very useful comments regarding this text, so I will just add two notes:(1) There used to be an audio cassette tape, now unavailable, that was made for this book. Using the tape, the student could HEAR much of the text, in what is essentially Central Tibetan dialect. Shambhala publications, which now publishes this textbook, is offering without charge, mp3 files of the original audio tape for this textbook. You can obtain the two mp3 files and a descriptive index (with timestamps) of the files, by going to Shambhala publications, and searching inside their website for this title.(2) If you get Translating Buddhism from Tibetan, also get the textbook/workbook "How to Read Classical Tibetan" by Craig Preston, who was a student of Joe Wilson and who uses Wilson's method and approach to learning Tibetan. Start with his (CP's) volume 1 -- as it spoon-feeds the student all the details needed to learn how to work through a translation of a Buddhist text (especially of that genre). It is INVALUABLE as a tool to help the student efficiently practice how to actually carry out a translation. After a student has developed some facility in undertaking a translation, based on having used these two books, there is another book to get, as well: A Tibetan Verb Lexicon by Paul Hackett (another student of Joe Wilson). This book provides translation and examples of a great number of verbs, and includes the category (I through VIII) of each verb, according to Wilson's classification scheme.... and ENJOY YOUR STUDIES ! You have here an excellent and fairly complete set of materials to help you learn literary Tibetan.

Either you like Joe Wilson's approach or you don't. Focussing on the 'dots' instead of the 'particles' is one approach, but there are arguments for and against it.However, if you decide to go with that approach then the book is consistent. And well-structured.

As one would expect of a book on Tibetan Buddhism, this seems the product of a brilliant mind who has lived by himself for an extended period of time in an oxygen poor environment. The science of the dots? Changing commonly accepted declension names for fun and politics? Rectangles and arrows? Eschewing commonly accepted academic transliteration systems for one that as far as I can tell he just made up? Long lists of vocabulary words of abstruse Buddhist concepts which disappear until three chapters later where they pop up in translation exercises where their memorization and comprehension is taken for granted?I’m sympathetic to the author’s challenges: imagine a German textbook designed for the absolute beginner that skips the ‘which way to the bus terminal, Hans’ phase and jumps directly into Kant. Nonetheless this book is nothing if not character building. Thus I’m grateful for all the merit that plodding through it has undoubtedly allowed me to accrue.

This book has been a superb aid in learning Tibetan for me. I started learning Tibetan last year at age 48 with Lama David Curtis and Joe Wilson's book (especially the "Tenglish") has been a wonderful support. It really works for me.

This enormous textbook (808 pages, 4.7cm thick) sets out with a noble goal: to teach you how to read Tibetan Buddhist texts in Tibetan.Unfortunately the book has a great many maddening faults.- Explanations are presented piecemeal, in often garbled and disorganised form. Wilson seems to be one of those people who cannot organise their thoughts.- In addition to being disorganised, the explanations are maddeningly verbose. Wilson suffers from a sort of bombastic verbal diarrhoea. It is extremely hard to extract the essential information from all this chatter. The information is there, but you have to work intolerably hard to find it. It would be possible to revise and restructure this book to make it a quarter of its present length, and it would be a far superior product.- Wilson's transliteration system is non-standard and eccentric, and he presents us with a ridiculously and needlessly complex set of phonological rules which attempt to shoehorn the pronunciation of Classical Tibetan into the mould of one of the modern Tibetan dialects. The approach taken by Joanna Bialek in her new textbook (see below) is much more pragmatic, simple and honest.- Wilson goes far too deeply into rhetoric, logic and Buddhist doctrinal vocabulary, at far too early a stage. This means that the beginner is very soon burdened with specialised doctrinal concepts and enormous vocabulary lists of specialised terms. This is not remotely helpful when you are only just beginning to grasp the complexities of the language.- There are far too many sloppy errors and misprints throughout the book. In particular, the transliterations of the words in each lesson's vocabulary lists have frequent errors.- The vocabulary lists for each lesson appear to have been constructed at random. They do not contain all the words presented during the course of the lesson, and they contain many words never even mentioned in the lesson.- Some words are not listed in any vocabulary list nor even in the glossary of words at the back of the book.- Although there are drills giving specimen sentences illustrating what has been taught in the current lesson, they are much too skimpy. So there is not enough practice material. This is a major failing. It makes it very hard to get accustomed to the grammar and structures being taught.- Wilson makes the grammar seem exceptionally cumbersome by trying to force it into the mould of Sanskrit grammar. This is entirely inappropriate, and causes needless distortions and complexities. Tibetan and Sanskrit are quite different languages, and Tibetan - like any language - should be described on its own terms. This is a major fault with the book, because it puts a complex filter between the learner and what is, really, a far simpler language than Wilson would have you believe.I do not recommend this book at all. I would go so far as to say that it is almost useless. Instead, I strongly recommend Joanna Bialek's 'A Textbook in Classical Tibetan', which is intelligent, practical, interesting, and easy to use - certainly the best textbook of Classical Tibetan written in English (even if some of the English is occasionally oddly unidiomatic).

This book needs to be read in streams. Each chapter deals with many levels of meaning, and I truly think that after chapter 8 no chapter can be read in its entirety by a novice although the material is tremendous. So, someone needs to organise different syllabi based on the level of the reader.Otherwise, I really like this book.

Se você quer aprender a linguagem tibetana, especialmente se com fins de ler os textos budistas vajrayana originais ou textos budistas vertidos em tibetano, eis um livro que quando começamos a manusear, ler e estudar te convence de que sim... vou aprender tibetano! Excelente!

Great text for laying down a solid foundation in Tibetan studies.

I bought it as a textbook to study Tibetan. It is good item and in very good condition, brandly new, but I have waited a little bit long....anyway, thank you