བོད་སྐད་སྙིང་པོ། The Heart of Tibetan Language, Volume 3, Exercises, སྲོལ་རྒྱུན་བརྡ་སྤྲོད་ཕྱོགས་བསྡུས་དང་དེང་རབས་སློབ་གཉེར་ཐབས་ལམ་ཟུང་འབྲེལ། A Synthesis of Indigenous Grammar and Contemporary Learning Methodology

Franziska Oertle

Feb 2026 · Dharma Publishing

About this ebook

Practice is the mother of all learning, especially when it comes to studying a foreign language. This accompanying exercise book, as well as the website with all the audio files, dialogues with footnotes and solutions to the exercises, are therefore indispensable additions to the textbook The Heart of the Tibetan Language. 

Featuring a wide variety of exercises for each lesson in the textbook, the exercise book provides optimal methods and opportunities for practicing the three language skills: listening, speaking and reading. The exercises are skilfully designed to be engaging and enjoyable. 

Each lesson has two sections, the first one focusing on Dharma terminology blended with colloquial language, and the second one supporting your learning of the colloquial grammar presented in each lesson. Based on a rich variety of listening comprehension, speaking prompts, word ‘salads’, fill-in-the-gap exercises, matching, tic-tac-toe, memory games, and other playful exercises, you’ll put your newly acquired Dharma vocabulary and grammar knowledge into practice right away. In addition to the topics in each lesson, the exercises intentionally use a lot of intermediate grammar structures and vocabulary to reinforce them. Each lesson also includes two exercises using beautiful གཞས་ཚིག, song lyrics. 

Beyond being motivating and humorous through the pictures of the non-human students, the colourful page layout represents the colours of Tibetan prayer flags. In this way, we can keep our awareness alive about how རླུང་རྟ་མཐོ་པོ།—or how fortunate—we are to have the precious opportunity to study the Tibetan language.

བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག 

About the author

Born in multilingual Switzerland, Franziska Oertle was always fascinated by foreign languages, cultures and religious traditions. Upon her first encounter with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in 2005, she dreamt of understanding his teachings in Tibetan. She left her teaching job to study in Kathmandu, Nepal. Franziska began teaching colloquial Tibetan while studying Buddhist Philosophy and Himalayan Languages at Rangjung Yeshe Institute. While co-teaching with her native speaker colleague རྒན་མི་འགྱུར་ལགས།, she was deeply inspired by his passion for indigenous Tibetan grammar and the traditional way of explaining the language. She therefore went on to write her MA thesis on Tibetan grammar and decided to publish a 4-volume language textbook using that insider approach.

For the past sixteen years, she has been teaching and developing Tibetan language curricula and programs at institutions throughout Nepal and India, as well as the University of Virginia. She is currently designing and teaching Tibetan language courses online at SINI, the Sarnath International Nyingma Institute.