The great translators of our era spent years in Asia learning how to read Tibetan. Craig Preston reaches out to those of us who are pursuing the dream of learning how to read Tibetan at home. How to Read Classical Tibetan, Volume Two: Buddhist Tenets continues Preston’s ground-breaking series of self-study materials designed for students learning to read Classical Tibetan on their own. This book serves a dual purpose: the student learns both grammar and philosophy at the same time.

With easy-to-understand diagrams, he shows you how to find your way through Tibetan sentences. It is like having a personal tutor at your fingertips, allowing you to proceed at your own pace through a wealth of material. As you work your way through an actual Tibetan book, Preston holds your hand at every turn. He explains the meaning of new words as they arise. He also offers a complete glossary of all the words at the end of the book. As you encounter new grammatical constructions, he walks you through how to understand their meaning. He shows you how to break down Tibetan sentences into small pieces, and then how to put those pieces back together to form clearly understandable English sentences.

The book also helps students of the Tibetan language gain entry into the genre of Tenets, which is the comparative study of the original schools of Buddhist thought in India. He introduces you to the rich vocabulary of Buddhist philosophy without assuming any prior knowledge. Unlike scholarly treatments of this subject that presuppose academic knowledge of tenets, Preston offers simple, easy-to-understand explanations of complicated ideas.

This is how Preston gives you a complete language course. He teaches you how to read an actual Tibetan text and teaches you what it means. How to Read Classical Tibetan will take the self-study student to the next level at their own speed.

How to Read Classical Tibetan, Volume 2, Craig Preston, Snow Lion Publications, Paperback, 342 pp., $45.00

Craig Preston is an internationally known teacher of Classical Tibetan and author of three books. Educated at the University of Virginia under the renowned scholar Jeffery Hopkins, Preston has taught Classical Tibetan for fifteen years. He is adjunct faculty member at the Dalai Lama’s Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca NY, where he frequently teaches a wide range of Buddhist topics. He currently teaches Classical Tibetan and Buddhist philosophy in the Asian Studies Department at the University at Buffalo.