Intensive Summer Tibetan at the University of Virginia

In this course, students are offered two years (12 U.Va. credit hours) of Tibetan in an intensive, total immersion atmosphere. The program will focus on modern spoken and written Tibetan according to the Central Tibetan dialect. The primary textbook for the class is Nicolas Tournadre and Sangdak Dorje's Manual of Standard Tibetan, translated into English by Charles Ramble and published by Snow Lion Publications.

The course will also utilize new multimedia materials being developed by Tibetan Language Learning Resources (TLLR) from original film shot in Tibet. Please see there too for an outline of the course. The last unit of the summer will then offer a bridge to classical literary Tibetan on the basis of mastery of modern Tibetan.

The lead instructor for the 2008 summer term is Nicolas Tournadre. The drill instructor is Tsering Wangchuk, a graduate student in the Religious Studies Department at UVA. A second native speaker will conduct the evening conversation-centered portion of the course. Cultural group activities are held during the evenings, as well as sessions to reinforce the day's lessons.

The syllabus for Intensive Summer Tibetan is available online.

For further details on the application process, please consult the Summer Foreign Language Institute website.