Grammar Toolkit
Every technical term used on this site, defined in plain English with an everyday analogy. Nothing here assumes prior grammar study.
If a word on the verse pages looked like jargon — ablative, nominalizer, genitive — it is defined here. Click any entry to open it.
The six particles that do most of the work
If you learn nothing else, learn to spot these. Together they account for the grammar of nearly every line in the text.
| ལ | ལ་ | to / toward / at — marks the target |
| ལས | ལས་ | from / than — marks a source or a comparison |
| གིས | གིས་ གྱིས་ ཀྱིས་ ཡིས་ ས་ | by / with / because — marks the means, the doer, or the reason |
| འི | འི་ གི་ ཀྱི་ གྱི་ ཡི་ | of / ’s — glues two nouns together |
| ཏུ | ཏུ་ དུ་ རུ་ སུ་ ར་ | as / -ly — turns a word into a description of how |
| པ | པ་ བ་ | the act of — freezes a verb so it can be used like a noun |
Why so many spellings? Tibetan changes a particle’s spelling to match the last letter of the word before it — the same instinct that makes English say a cat but an apple. གིས, གྱིས, ཀྱིས and ཡིས are one particle in four outfits. Learn the job, not the spelling list.
The five-step method for any verse
| Step 1 | Go to the end and find the verb. It is almost always in line 4. |
| Step 2 | Check for ཤོག. If it is there, the whole sentence is a wish, not a statement. |
| Step 3 | Find the target: look for ལ. Who is on the receiving end? |
| Step 4 | Find the means: look for an instrumental. How is it being done? |
| Step 5 | Now read the leftovers. Anything ending in པའི is describing the noun that follows it. |