The curriculum

Everything you'll learn

The actual material, not a teaser. It starts with real spoken words, each one recorded by a native Lhasa speaker, so you learn to hear and say Tibetan first. The alphabet, reading rules, and classical grammar are all here too, when you want to go deeper.

Speak from day one

Real words, in a real voice

This is the heart of Gangkar. Everyday spoken Lhasa Tibetan, grouped by the situations you meet it in, and every single word is a real recording by a native speaker, not text-to-speech. You learn to hear it and say it, the way you actually pick up a language. A few from each set:

Greetings

བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།TAH-shee DEH-legAuspicious greetings / Hello

ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ།TOOK-jay-CHEHThank you

ཞོགས་པ་བདེ་ལེགས།ZHOG-pa DEH-legGood morning

Numbers

གཅིག ༡CHIGOne (1)

གཉིས ༢NYEETwo (2)

གསུམ ༣SUMThree (3)

Family

ཨ་མ།AH-maMother

ཕ་ལགས།PA-lagFather (respectful)

གྲོགས་པོ།DROG-poFriend

Food and Drink

བོད་ཇ།BÖ-jaTibetan butter tea

མོག་མོགMOG-mogDumplings

ཐུག་པ།TOOK-paNoodle soup

Nature

གངས་རི།GANG-riSnow mountain / Peak

ཉི་མ།NYI-maSun / Day

ཟླ་བ།DA-waMoon / Month

Travel

གང་དུ།GANG-duWhere?

དགོན་པ།GON-paMonastery / Temple

ལམ།LAMRoad / Path / Way

Every word recorded by a native Lhasa speaker.

The alphabet

The thirty consonants, in order

Every Tibetan word is built from these thirty letters. In the app each one carries native audio, tone and aspiration cues, and stroke-order tracing. Here they are in full, grouped four to a family the way they are recited.

ཀka

ཁkha

གga

ངnga

ཅca

ཆcha

ཇja

ཉnya

ཏta

ཐtha

དda

ནna

པpa

ཕpha

བba

མma

ཙtsa

ཚtsha

ཛdza

ཝwa

ཞzha

ཟza

འ'a

ཡya

རra

ལla

ཤsha

སsa

ཧha

ཨa

The script's logic

How letters stack into a syllable

Tibetan does not sit in a straight line. Letters stack: a head letter above, a root in the middle, a foot below. Read the stack and you can read the word.

སsa · head

ཀka · root

ཡya · foot

→

སྐྱkya

Three letters, one stacked syllable. The superscript sits on top, the root in the middle, the subscript hangs below. Once the shape is familiar, the reading rules fall into place.

5 prefixes · ག ད བ མ འ sit before the root and stay silent.
10 suffixes · ག ང ད ན བ མ འ ར ལ ས close the syllable.
2 post-suffixes · ད ས follow certain suffixes.
7 la-don particles · སུ ར རུ དུ ན ལ ཏུ, chosen by the letter before them.

Founder note

Why I built Gangkar the way I did.

བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས། I'm Jinpa. Tibetan American. I grew up watching friends and family slowly stop speaking Tibetan, because the resources were never there. for anyone. scarce doesn't even cover it.

there was no Duolingo for Tibetan. no simple, accessible app that actually taught the language properly. for heritage learners, for Buddhist practitioners, for anyone curious about one of the oldest living languages in the world, the options were textbooks or nothing.

so i built the closest thing i could. Gangkar teaches Tibetan the way Tibetan actually works. the script follows the canonical སུམ་ཅུ sum-cu layout. the reading rules sit where you need them. the vocabulary is grounded in real spoken Lhasa Tibetan. when something was wrong, i rebuilt it from scratch rather than leave it.

it's not perfect yet. sentence building is coming. more vocabulary is coming. but the foundation is solid, because that was always the priority: a simple, accessible way to actually start learning Tibetan.

that's what was missing. that's what i'm building. ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ།

Jinpa · founder of GangkarBuilding in the open, for the language and the people who carry it.