སྦྱངས་ and སྦྱོང

🎓 ལོ་ཙཱའི་སློབ་གསོ། A1 Language Q&A
1

Hi Dirk,

Is it སྦྱངས་ the same than སྦྱོང་ which is in both cases to practice?

2

Hi Ana,

Yes. Same verb!

སྦྱང་ is the most important form. In spoken, use སྦྱང་ + evidential. དཔེར་ན།

  • བོད་སྐད་སྦྱང་གི་ཡོད།
  • ང་ཚོ་ སློབ་གྲྭ་ ལ་ ཞོགས་པ་ ཡི་གེ་ སྦྱང་གི་ རེད།
  • ཡི་གེ་ སྦྱང་ ཚར་ ནས་ ཁ་ལག་ ཟ་གི་ ཡོད་རེད།
    ལ་སོགས་པ།

You will see སྦྱོང་ as part of the noun སློབ་སྦྱོང་, as in སློབ་སྦྱོང་བྱེད་ཀྱི་ཡོད།

In writing, some people use སྦྱངས་ in the past tense. But སྦྱང་ is also okay. (Like “spelt” vs “spelled”). I don’t think you need to worry about memorizing all the forms of all the verbs (esp not yet), but the traditional grammar forms are:

  • Present: སྦྱོང་
  • Past: སྦྱངས་ / སྦྱང་
  • Future: སྦྱང་
  • Imperative: སྦྱོངས་

What’s good practice is to do exactly what you did—look for the patterns, and get used to the kinds of variations you’ll see!

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3

ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ་། !!

So, about སྦྱང I will recognize if it is past or future tense because just the context?
For example, in this particular sentence, can I assume that is future because it is mentioned ཚར་ ནས་? Which I am also assuming that is something like “after to finish” (I am not totally sure, because searching in the dictionary ཚར་ is “finish” and about ནས་ we are usually using it as “from”)

Also, I would like to check with you this sentence, which is related with the topic :
འདི་ལ་བོད་ཡིག་སྦྱོང་ག་སླེབས་རེད།
Can we say that is something like: I arrived/come here to practice written Tibetan? What is the function of “ག” in this case ?

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4

Yes. The context and the helping verbs. For example:

ཁ་སང་ བོད་ཡིག་ སྦྱང་ རེད། “Yesterday (he) studied Tibetan”
སང་ཉིན་ བོད་ཡིག་ སྦྱང་གི་ རེད། “Tomorrow, he will study Tibetan”
etc

So like English uses a helping verb “will”, Tibetan uses the helping verb “རེད་”, or like English uses verb endings like “studied / studies”, Tibetan uses endings like “སྦྱང་གི / སྦྱང་པ”, etc.

“ཡི་གེ་ སྦྱང་ ཚར་ ནས་ ཁ་ལག་ ཟ་གི་ ཡོད་རེད།” – After we’ve studied our letters, we eat.

Yes. -ག་ is used like -ཡ་, to make a verb into a noun, and it is used w/ verbs of motion (coming / going). Thinking of it as “to” almost always works.

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