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This describes various way to make use of this web site. To start with, this site is not for learning the Tibetan alphabet or basic grammar rules. There are plenty of books and web sites that have such information. The main purpose is to learn to read Tibetan texts, if possible using a dictionary as little as possible. The format of the translated pages is designed so that you need to put in some effort to read the text without getting too much help from the translation. The Tibetan text is also formatted in a format you would find on a pecha page -- sometimes the texts are dense due to the space available with wooden frames used for the printing. You need to put in some effort to open a separate window for the translated word or construct. Also in many cases you need to work a little bit harder to find a more comple term and it's separate words -- this is to get you to work as that's the way to learn. Start with the smaller texts or citations in case this all is daunting. Note that verse based texts have incomplete sentences, double words and other oddities in order to keep the syllable account the same across each part. Also, learn bigger words and their parts to learn individual nouns, adjectives and verbs such as investigating བྱིན་རླབས་འཇུག Start by learning small common words and verbs. Notice the sentence formats. Notice how verse format is terse and takes shortcuts and double-words to form sentences with a certain syllable number. Note how the outlining with commentaries work. Check out how comments from other sources such as sutras are formed. Learn how titles are construced as well as title names, a lot of this will be useful if you check out various catalogues and collections. Note how verses have a defined format with for example four sentence structures. Go over a text multiple times. Just focus on sections of the text. If you dwell on both the words and the meaning for a longer time, then the context will internalize and you will have it in your mind as an imprint. Start with a definition term and follow the links to other definitions. There's a lot of navigation that will go on when using this site. Learn how to go to the next and previous pages with your favorite web browser using its keyboard and other user interface shortcuts. The browsers also have other navigation tools for opening links as tabs or new windows. Do searches via the top level search to find expected and unexpected web sites. Follow the links to other pages This web site is just now experimenting with the option of selecting Tibetan (Wylie or Tibetan fonts) text and by hitting the control-/ (control and the / key) you get a popup with translations directly from the THL web site (tested with latest Safari and Chrome, keyboard only support.) |