Dzongkha phrasebook

This article or section does not match our manual of style or needs other editing. Please plunge forward, give it your attention and help it improve! Suggested fixes: None specified. Please use the article's talk page to ask questions if you are not sure why this tag was added and whether it is safe to remove it. Dzongkha is the national language of Bhutan. It has about 160.000 native speakers and about 470.000 second language speakers. Pronunciation guide Dzongkha uses the Tibetan writing system. There are 5 vowels (a, e, i, o and u) and 30 consonants. Vowels Vowels are shown with vowel symbols. There are 4 vowel symbols: a - ཨ (without a symbol it is "a") e - ཨེ i - ཨི o - ཨོ u - ཨུ There is only 1 vowel per syllable. Syllables are seperated with a "Tsheg", which looks like this: ་ The syllables follow an easy pattern: ཀ་ = Ka ཀི་ = Ki ཀིད་ = Kid ཀི་ད་ = Kida ཀི་དེ་ = Kide ཀི་དེབ་ = Kideb (By the way: "Kideb" means "notebook".) Consonants There are 30 consonants. ཀ (ka) ཁ (kha*) ག (ga) ང (nga) ཅ (cha) ཆ (chha*) ཇ (ja) ཉ (nya) ཏ (ta) ཐ (tha*) ད (da) ན (na) པ (pa) ཕ (pha*) བ (ba) མ (ma) ཙ (tsa) ཚ (tsha*) ཛ (dza) ཝ (wa) ཞ (zha*) ཟ (za) འ ('a) ཡ (ya) ར (ra) ལ (la) ཤ (sha) ས (sa) ཧ (ha) ཨ (a) * = These letters are pronounced like the one before, but with a harder breath. 'a = A short break. a = Silent consonant. Used, when there is no consonant needed, like in the word ཨ་པ (apa), which is "father". Phrase list Basics Hello. (formal)  Kuzu zangpo la. Hello. (informal)  Kuzu zangpo. How are you?  Gaday bay Zhu Ga? I'm fine.  Legshom. (Layshom) What is your name?  Chhoe gi ming ga chi mo? My name is _____.  Nge gi ming _____ in. I am from ____.  Nga ____ lay in. Thank you or Thanks  བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ (kadrin chhe) See you later! (informal)  Shu lay log jay ge! Where?  Gathey? How much?  Gademchi? Problems What is the Problem?  Choe gi Ka Ngyel ga chi mo? Where is the Bank?  Ngyul Khang Ga teey mo? Numbers Dzongkha has its own digits. The system works like the English digit system, so 2012 = ༢༠༡༢ 1 (༡)  chi 2 (༢)  nyi 3 (༣)  sum 4 (༤)  zhi 5 (༥)  nga 6 (༦)  dru 7 (༧)  duen 8 (༨)  gay 9 (༩)  gu 10 (༡༠)  chu tham 11 (༡༡)  chu chi 12 (༡༢)  chu nyi Time Clock time time  (...) o'clock  bazaar 8 o'clock  bazaar gyed Duration _____ minute(s)  karma _____ hour(s)  ganta _____ day(s)  zha _____ week(s)  duenthrak _____ month(s)  daw _____ year(s)  lho Days Monday  Migmar Tuesday  lhakpa Wednesday  Phurbu Thursday  Pasang Friday  Pemba Saturday  Nima Sunday  Dawa Months January  indha dangpa February  indha nyipa March  indha sumpa, indha zhipa, indha ngapa, indha drukpa, indha duenpa, indha gyepa, indha gupa and indha chunyepa for December Note  For the months of lunar claender the prefix is rangda, indha is used for the months of the international calender. Writing time and date Colors Green  Changkha Red  Marp White  Karp Blue  Hoem Black  Naap Yellow  Serp Orange  Leewang Transportation Bus and train Directions Taxi Identified by the yellow top(hood) and BT registration affixed before the number. Taxi  la khor Fare  la How much?  ga day chi mo? Lodging Money How much is this/it?  Ngultrum ga they chi mo? Eating Meal  Toh /zhay go eating  shay go za ni delicious  zhim bay bitter  khag ta sweet  ngam sour  chup Water  chu Tea  ja Curry  tsoem Soup  thup Chilly  ema Cheese  datsi cook  toh bey ni eat  zhey Dry Chilli  ema kam Potato  ཀེ་བ kewa Bars Alcoholic Beverage  Changg Bar  Changkhang Tip  Soera What's the bill?  Ga de chi mo? I am drunk.  Changg dang so ye. Water  Chu Local Drink  Ara It is strong. (spirit)  Ah ni gag tra du. It is mild.  Lha si si du. Shopping Shop  Tsongkhang How much?  Ga de chi mo? Discount please!  Gong phab nang! Driving Car  Numkhor Drive  Numkhor tang ni Licence  Lak Kher Police  thrim sung Road  Lam High speed  joba joba shuk bay tang Low speed  drogay bay tang Please take caution! (driving)  Reb drim di tang! Let's go!  Jogay! stop  numkor kag nang risky  ngyen khag Love I love you  Nga gi che lu ga. I can't stay without you  Nga che me pa me cha bay. I will make you a phone call.  Nga gi che lu juthen tang gay. Do you remember me?  Che nga dem mey ga? You're so beautiful!  Che namay samay jarim dhu!