Tibetan-English Dictionary

Christian Steinert

About this app

This application contains many different Tibetan-English dictionaries. It has a mode for searching Tibetan terms (either with Tibetan input or Wylie input) and another mode for searching English terms.

Note: an online version of this dictionary application is also available at: https://dictionary.christian-steinert.de

This dictionary app contains several Tibetan-English, Tibetan-Tibetan, and Tibetan-Sanskrit dictionaries. Thanks go to the authors and compilers of these dictionaries and glossaries without whose work this app would not be possible. The following material is currently contained:
- The glossary from the 84000 translation project (www.84000.co)
- Dr. Alexander Berzin's English-Tibetan-Sanskrit Glossary
- Rangjung Yeshe Tibetan-English Dharma Dictionary 3.0 by Erik Pema Kunsang
- Richard Barron's glossary
- Thomas Doctor's Tibetan-English terms
- Tibetan and English terms from: "Buddhist Terms - Multilingual Version" by Peter Gäng and Sylvia Wetzel, Buddhist Academy Berlin Brandenburg
- "Verbinator" Tibetan Verb Dictionary, taken from: Hill, Nathan (2010) "A Lexicon of Tibetan Verb Stems as Reported by the Grammatical Tradition" (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-7696-1004-8. If you want to support the author and the publisher please consider buying this book.
- Tsepak Rigdzin - Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terms
- The Uma Institute for Tibetan Studies Tibetan-Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Version: June 2015) by Jeffrey Hopkins and others.
- "Common Chinese-Tibetan-Sanskrit-English Buddhist Terminology", Compiled by Chung-An Lin and Hou-Wha Wang (only English and Tibetan terminology is incluced in the application).
- Dan Martin: “Tibetan Vocabulary.”
- Glossary for Mipham Rinpoche's Gateway to Knowledge, Vol. 1 (Rangjung Yeshe Publications)
- James Valby's Tibetan-English Dictionary
- Ives Waldo's glossary compilation
- Tibetan Computer Terms by the China Tibetology Research Center
- Tibetan definitions from major textbook authors of Sera Monastery (Tibetan)
- Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo (Tibetan)
- Dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo (Tibetan)
- Dag yig gsar bsgrigs (Tibetan)
- Mahavyutpatti (Sanskrit terms)
- Glossary Based on the Mahāvyutpatti and Yogacarabhumi compiled by Richard Mahoney (Sanskrit terms)
- Tibetan-Sanskrit dictionary by J.S. Negi
- Tibetan-Sanskrit dictionary Lokesh Chandra
- Tibetan abbreviations compiled by Bruno Lainé
More information about these dictionaries is available inside of the app itself.

Tibetan input occurs in Wylie or with a Tibetan keyboard layout (you can for example use the Tibetan keyboard from "Iron Rabbit" (Lobsang Monlam) which is available in the Google Play Store if you don't want to type in Wylie transliteration). If you prefer wylie input then you can use the app straight away without installing any additional keyboards.

See also www.christian-steinert.de for further resources and pointers to other Tibetan dictionary programs.


Common Problems:

This app needs to extract about 100 MB of dictionary data onto your device. This means that you need to have sufficient space on the internal memory of your device so that the app will work. If you have enough space but still encounter any problems when the applications starts up then please contact me and I will try to understand the problem that occurs on your device. Normally the app should work on all devices with Android 4.4 and higher but if it doesn't work for you then let me know. Some older Android devices have problems with showing the Tibetan font in the text field in which you are typing. In this case the only thing you can do is to change the application settings and tell the application to show the input text in Wylie transliteration instead of Tibetan script.

Ratings and reviews

Love it. The results are much more detailed than the other dictionaries I've used. It even shows you tenses and their correct spellings. The only drawback that is causing me to use another app for quick searches is how the backspace key works when inputting Tibetan search queries. It erases the entire syllable making it quite frustrating to type. Fix that and I'll give you 6 stars (if I could). Thanks for your hard work! ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ།

This app is excellent if you want to learn Tibetan words. It translates Tibetan words into English (meaning and words). I found this app very useful. It has drastically enhanced my learning of Tibetan words. I will certainly rate this app five out of five stars. Whoever made this app, thank you very much. May you attain a lot of merits.

This is an excellent dictionary. The additions of Jeffery Hopkins, Tsepak Rigdzin, Alexander Berzin and other , mostly Gelukpa, translators to the standard Rangjung Yeahe Dictionary are really excellent and add a different perspective on many words. (The translators cited in Rangjung Yeshe are mostly Kagyü and Nyingma in background). Similarly, the addition of many Tibetan Language dictionaries is also excellent. I want to thank Christian Steinert for producing this program and collection.

What's new

Improved support for Android 13