Learn Tibetan Through Topics You Actually Care About

LingoBear creates short Tibetan passages on topics you choose. Tap any word for an instant English translation and build your vocabulary as you read. Sino-Tibetan language with major dialect groups (Central, Khams, Amdo), 30-letter Uchen abugida, distinctive 'silent' prefix consonants, ~6M speakers.

Tap any word for instant translation

Every word in your Tibetan reading passage is clickable. Get English translations and grammar help — crucial for decoding silent prefixes and root letters.

Read about topics you choose

Type any topic and LingoBear generates a fresh Tibetan reading passage — from Lhasa Old Town to Tibetan Buddhist commentaries.

What is Tibetan and where is it spoken?

Tibetan (བོད་སྐད་, bod skad) is a Sino-Tibetan language with about 6 million speakers across the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, neighbouring Chinese provinces, Bhutan, Nepal and India. It has three major dialect groups: Central (with Lhasa as the standard spoken form), Khams (eastern) and Amdo (northeastern). Modern spoken Lhasa Tibetan is tonal; many western dialects are not.

Why is Tibetan spelling so different from pronunciation?

The Uchen alphabet was designed in the 7th century to write Old Tibetan and reflects pronunciation at that time. Since then prefixes, superscripts and suffix letters have largely gone silent, but spelling has remained conservative. The classic example is བཀྲ་ཤིས་ (b-k-r-a-sh-i-s) spelled as 'bkrashis' but pronounced 'Tashi' in modern Lhasa speech. LingoBear's tap-to-translate helps you bridge the gap.