Learn Tibetan

Learn Tibetan online with practical, real-life situations! Simple, fast and easy learning. Speak Lhasa Tibetan language with confidence. Start now with uTalk!


About Tibetan

Tibetan is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China and the Upper Mustang region of Nepal. It is also spoken in India. Tibetan is written with the same writing system as Dzongkha (spoken in Bhutan). Standard Tibetan is based on the speech in the capital, Lhasa, and is the most widely spoken of the Tibetic languages, with over a million speakers.

uTalk Language Logo
Arrow facing left to cycle backwards through text
Play sample text audio Play sample text audio
Arrow facing right to cycle forward through text

Planet Earth

Where is it spoken?

China

India

Nepal

People Talking

Number of speakers

1,200,000

Family Tree

Language family

Sino-Tibetan

Tibeto-Burman

Bodish

Fun facts — Tibetan

  • Tibetans show politeness by sticking their tongues out at each other. This shows they have no evil thoughts.
  • Tibetan has its own numerals, such as ༤ (four), ༥ (five) and ༦ (six).
  • The Tibetan phrase of endearment 'nyingdu-la' literally means 'most honoured poison of my heart'.
  • Standard written Tibetan, rather like French, has many silent letters. 'Language' is spelled 'skad' but pronounced 'ke'. The Tibetan word 'lama' is actually spelled 'blama'!

Over 30 million people have started speaking a new language with uTalk

Treasure

Over 2500 words and phrases, across 60+ topics covering everyday situations

Native Speakers

Practise speaking and compare your pronunciation with native speakers

Games

Game-based learning is fun and intuitive