Translating Buddhism from Tibetan

Rating:
Summary: Less enthused
Review: I am less enthused about this massive tome than the other reviewers. I have a feeling that the book has failed to make the transition from a very lively university course to a textbook. The approach using all the different 'dimensions' is rather idiosyncratic. There problem is that there are few other choices when it comes to Tibetan textbooks. There is a heavy reliance for examples on the literature of logic. In my opinion more examples from practice-related material would have been useful. Too much reliance is placed on traditional Tibetan grammar for my liking. And that romanisation is unnecessarily complex. Still, it is a very significant work, and inspite of its short-comings, is still the best in this small field.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as it looks
Review: The first 5 or 6 Chapters are very useful for the Beginner but afterwards it becames increasingly difficult. It hard to understand the explanations on more advance grammar. I think that unnecesarilly tries to explain many concepts instead of teaching the howto of the language as in the first part. I think I should be reworked (at least the last part) in order to make the student to be able to use the grammar at least for some basic reading. I think I should include more practical examples of reading and interpreting texts. Vocabulary alone is not enough. So I guess that considering the few book about this subject this is a good one after all despite the shortcomings.

Rating:
Summary: Basic for leaning Tibetan
Review: Very useful book for learners with a constructive introduction to Tibetan sentence structure and a useful basic vocabulary for classical Tibetan. Start with this book if you want to learn to read Tibetan and get a good basis. With the next edition please give us a lighter version an add an index!