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Ga༼ ག་ ༽

Updated: Jul 9, 2022

🐵 Aspirated

🔻 Low Tone

Row 1

Column 3


This is the letter Gha. It's red because it's an aspirated low tone letter. When a vowel is added the inherent (A) in changes the vowel accordingly.




 



MNEMONIC

kinda also looks like a kettle no?

and look like they were created

quite similarly to the letters p and q.




 



The four vowels

There are four vowels which can be attached to a consonant and they are:




 



གིགུགེགོ

Ga + vowels

Let's take a look at how the spelling and pronunciation of changes with each vowel.




 



vowel Vocab

Here are some vocabulary words with each vowel.




 


རྒལྒསྒ

Superscripts

These letters go above the root letter.

can attach to all three superscripts.



Although they are spelled differently,

these letters are pronounced the same.





 



Stroke order

(Click for animations)

Rago

Lago

Sago




 



Superscript

Vocab


བོད་སྐ


The སྐ in བོད་སྐད changes

it's pronunciation

to སྐེ due to the suffix ད.




 


གྲགྱགླ

Subscripts

These letters go below the root letter.

can attach to these three subscripts.



Subscripts usually change the sound

of the letter they are attached to.


See how rata, yata, and lata

change the pronunciation of .




 



Stroke order

(Click for animations)

Rata

Yata

Lata






 



Subscript

Vocab


ཀྲ་ཤིས

Although there is an R in Trashi,

the R is very subtle.




 


⚠️ Irregular ⚠️

Wazur is sneaky and can attach to certain combinations and this is one of them. Don't worry, these combinations are super infrequent and the sound does not change.


གྲྭ

Ga + rata + Dra + Wazur = Dra


གྲྭ

High school

ཆེ་རིམ་སློབ་གྲྭ Cherim lopdra


Bonus


Student

སློབ་ཕྲུག Lopthru





 



སྔོན་འཇུག

Ka as a Prefix

Prefixes are silent letters that

come before the root letter.

is one of the 5 prefixes,

it can attach to the following.



(4th column letters change tone.)



 


Ga + Prefix

As a root letter,

usually follows these letters:



Even though

་, ་, ་, and

look different than ་,

they're all pronounced the same.




 



Prefix vocab




 



Ka as a suffix

These letters come after the root letter.

is one of the 11 suffixes that can attach to a letter. Sometimes it makes a K sound, sometimes it's silent.




 



vocab builder

Here are some additional

vocabulary words that are

associated with the letter ​.

The key words in this video are:


སྒོང ་རྡོག



See how many words we could

make from just one root word?


Did you notice how the ཀོབ་ in ཀོབ་ཆུང​ kinda sounds similar ​ཀོ་པི. I think the changed to because is not one of the original jenju, so in order to capture the final "p/b" consonant sound, we have to add as a suffix.




 



Practice


Now that we learned how vowels interact with the letter let's try writing it in the Uchen, Jotshum, and Ume script.



Uchen

(Dzongkha & Tibetan)

གི གུ གེ གོ

རྒ ལྒ སྒ

གྲ གྱ གླ གྲྭ


Jotshum

(Dzongkha)

གི་་ གུ གེ གོ

རྒ ལྒ སྒ

གྲ གྱ གླ གྲྭ


Ume

(Tibetan)

གི གུ གེ གོ
རྒ ལྒ སྒ
གྲ གྱ གླ གྲྭ



 
 





This is everything you need to know about the letter .


Make sure that as you practice your

handwriting with the resources

above so that you can impress

everyone with your Dzongkha skills.



(╮°-°)╮┳━━┳



Don't forget!


Spelling in Dzongkha is incredibly important and considered by many to be one of the hardest parts about learning the language. When studying, try to make it a habit to spell the words aloud like we did in the videos.



Quiz time!


Literally the two words that

no one enjoys hearing.

Don't worry, we prepared some

flashcards for you to practice

what you learned in this lesson.



( ╯°□°)╯ ┻━━┻


Relax, its not graded.


 

If you have any questions regarding anything in this lesson, please reach out to me in our discord server.


See you in the next lesson!



བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ་ལགས། ~
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