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FPMT Translation Services
As the Dharma takes root in the West, clear and accurate translations of Buddhist texts, prayers, and teachings are crucial. FPMT works with translators around the world to translate Tibetan texts into English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, and other languages.
Resources for Readers
- A Guide to Sanskrit Transliteration and Pronunciation
This document gives a brief introduction to the transliteration of Sanskrit, as it is presented in FPMT translations.
English Translations
In May 2011, FPMT hosted its first international translation conference, Taking up The Challenge of Translating Buddhism, at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy. We hope to be able to organize further translation conferences in the future. Please see the complete and summarized reports for the 2011 conference below:
- Full FPMT translation conference report, May 2011
- Summary FPMT translation conference report, May 2011
Following the 2011 conference, the FPMT Translation Services team began the long-term project of compiling a Tibetan-English glossary for the organization, together with the Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translation Team (LRZTT), composed of FPMT-affiliated translators, and the FPMT Translation and Editorial Board (TEB). The purpose of this long-term project is to create consistency throughout the translations released by the FPMT, thereby improving readers’ understanding of our texts. The first edition of the this glossary is nearing completion, and a copy will be made available on this site for readers to consult.
Other Language Translations
- Pour les traductions en français : Cliquez ici pour visiter notre Service de traduction.
- Traducción FPMT Hispana
Some of Our Translators
Our translators live in every part of the world and bring extensive Dharma and language education to their work as translators.
Joona Repo first came in contact Tibetan Buddhism and the FPMT in his mid-teens.
He has a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and has held several postdoctoral teaching and research positions with a focus on Tibetan art and religious history.
Joona is currently the FPMT Translation Coordinator for Education Services.
Gavin Kilty spent over a decade in Dharamsala, India, studying the Gelug monastic curriculum at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics and becoming proficient in Tibetan. After returning to the UK he trained and worked as an English language teacher, and since the late 90’s he has worked as a Tibetan-English translator. He is also a teacher of Tibetan language and has taught courses for the FPMT’s Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program in Dharamsala, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy, and Jamyang Buddhist Center in London.
Gavin is a full-time translator for the Institute of Tibetan Classics. His completed works include Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kālacakra Tantra, Mirror of Beryl: A Historical Introduction to Tibetan Medicine, and Tsongkhapa’s A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages: Teachings on Guhyasamāja T
antra, and Tales from the Tibetan Operas: The Eight Great Folk Operas of Tibet. His other translations include The Splendor of an Autumn Moon, The Devotional Verse of Tsongkhapa, and The Life of My Teacher: A Biography of Ling Rinpoché by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Understanding the Case Against Shukden, by the International Gelugpa Foundation.
Gavin is a translation reviewer for 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, and as a member of the FPMT Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translation Team he participated in the discussions which formed the basis for the compilation of the FPMT’s glossary of preferred terms.
Gavin contributes to the FPMT Basic Program as a visiting teacher, and translated “The Tathāgata Essence”—the first chapter of the standard Basic Program commentary on the Uttaratantra by Gyaltsab Je. He is currently working on a translation of the Daśacakra Kṣitigarbha Sutra for FPMT Education Services.
Conni Krause participated in the seven-year Systematic Study of Buddhism program under Geshe Thubten Ngawang in Hamburg from 1990 to 1997. She is also a graduate of FPMT’s Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program (LRZTP) in Dharamsala, and served as an interpreter for Geshe Thubten Soepa at Aryatara Institute in Munich.
Connie has translated Je Tsongkhapa’s Middle Length Lamrim from the original Tibetan into German, and has helped to make available Discovering Buddhism and the Basic Program texts as well as the FPMT Essential Buddhist Prayer Books in German.
Ven. Fedor Stracke has been a Buddhist monk since 1988 and spent over fifteen years studying at Sera Je Monastic University and attending public teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since 1996, Ven. Fedor has been teaching in FPMT centers and has served as Tibetan interpreter for various geshes.
He currently teaches the Basic Program at Kopan Monastery in Nepal and at Aryatara Institute in Munich, Germany.
He has translated the Commentary to ‘Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds’ (Spyod ’jug tikka) by Gyaltsab Je, a standard Basic Program text, and Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen’s Wisdom Debating Ignorance (Gshaga ‘debs), from Tibetan into English. For the Basic Program in Munich Ven. Fedor has translated various Basic Program texts into German.
John Newman was introduced to Buddhadharma by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan, Nepal in 1973. He subsequently studied under Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche at Deer Park Buddhist Center and at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, in Wisconsin, USA.
In 1987 he received a PhD in Buddhist Studies, and he currently teaches Asian religions at New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida, USA. He continued to study under Geshe Lundub Sopa Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and his research focuses on Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, especially Madhyamaka and Vajrayana.
Philip Quarcoo was born in Freiburg, Germany. He studied Modern European Languages at the University of Durham in Britain. He participated in Geshe Tashi Tsering’s two -year course Foundation of Buddhist Thought, at Jamyang Buddhist Center in London and later attended classes with Geshe Thubten Soepa at FPMT’s Aryatara Institute.
Philip graduated with an M.A. in Tibetan studies from the University of Munich in 2007 and then lived in Mongolia teaching English at FPMT’s Shedrup Ling Centre in Ulaanbaatar. He has translated three short booklets on vegetarianism by Geshe Thubten Soepa, as well as texts by the 19th Century Mongolian scholar Agvaanbaldan. In cooperation with Conni Krause, he recently translated Je Tsongkhapa’s Middle Length Lamrim from Tibetan into English for FPMT’s Basic Program; the work is to be published shortly by Wisdom Publications.
Ven. Tenzin Namdak, born in 1970 in The Netherlands, met the Dharma in January 1993. After his graduation (B.Sc. in Hydrology) he lived for a year at Maitreya Institute in The Netherlands, receiving lamrim teachings from Geshe Sonam Gyaltsen.
On the advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche he moved to Dharamsala, India, at the end of 1994 to learn Tibetan language. Here he received the Getsul (March 1995) and Gelong ordinations (March 1996) from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In April 1997 he entered Sera Je Monastery in South India, where he completed the final exams for the 19-year geshe studies program in November 2015, to receive his Geshe title on April 26, 2016.
Geshe Tenzin Namdak is director of Shedrup Sungdrel Ling, and former director of Sera IMI House, the house for western monks studying at Sera. He also interpretes for visiting lamas in addition to teaching at Choe Khor Sum Ling, Bangalore.
Toh Sze Gee holds a BSc with honors in mathematics as well as a postgraduate diploma in education. After teaching in a junior college in Singapore for several years, in 1998 she joined the seven-year residential Masters Program at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, from which she graduated with high honours. Since then she has been teaching regular Dharma courses in Singapore, as well as translating texts from Tibetan into English for the FPMT Basic Program and Masters Program.
Sze Gee was well known among the her fellow Masters Program students for her incredible energy both for study and Dharma practice. True to form, she accepted and served not only as teaching assitant for Ornament for Clear Realizations during ILTK’s second Masters Program but also as Tibetan-English interpreter. During that time she completed translating Gyaltsab Je’s commentary to Ornament, including the Haribhadra commentary and Maitreya’s root verses, from Tibetan into English.
Sze Gee has since acted as interpreter for Geshe Ngawang Drakpa at FPMT’s Tse Chen Ling Center, California, and as teacing assitsant for the first Masters Program at Nalanda Monastery in France. She recently completed the translation of Chokyi Gyaltsen’s General Meaning of the Middle Way, another important Masters Program text, and currently supports ILTK’s third Masters Program’s Middle Way students by Skype, from Singapore.
Ven. Tenzin Sangmo (Sophie McGrath), born in 1990 in Australia, has been interested in Tibetan Buddhism and ordination since the age of fourteen. At age eighteen, she became ordained at Chenrezig Institute, Australia. Wishing to become an interpreter and translator, she went to India soon thereafter, at age nineteen, to immerse herself in Tibetan language and philosophical studies.
She first entered Drolmaling Nunnery in Dharamsala, India, to follow the geshe studies program for five years, then went on to join Kopan Nunnery in Nepal to continue her geshe studies there.
Her Tibetan language training includes several interpreter and translation courses, and she gained experience with oral interpretation at Chenrezig Institute, contributing to the FPMT Basic Program, and at a UNESCO hosted Tibetan medicine conference in Mustang. She also translated a short text by His Holiness the Dalai Lama into German for Tibethaus, Frankfurt, Germany.
Having become fluent in both spoken and written Tibetan, Ven. Sangmo is now interested in offering further service as a translator; she was commissioned to translate part of the first chapter of Gyaltsab Je’s commentary on The Tathagata Essence, a Basic Program standard text.
Ven. Tenzin Tsomo (Chandra Chiara Ehm) is half German and half Italian. She was born in Trier, Germany in 1986, and her mother being a student of Lama Yeshe and Geshe Jampa Gyatso contributed to her lifelong interest in Tibetan Buddhism, testified by her taking refuge at the early age of six.
After her initial education in Germany she went to live and study in Italy, where she took novice ordination at age twenty two, and studied and completed the Masters Program subject Ornament for Clear Realization at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa. Here her German schooling was complemented by developing fluency in Italian, and she gained experience as an interpreter during weekend courses in the Italian Dharma centers, initially interpreting from Italian into English, German and French, and eventually from Tibetan into Italian, and elsewhere also into English.
Having entered Kopan Nunnery in Nepal in 2009, she has been following the geshe studies program up to the present, with additional studies in Sera Je Monastery and Gyurme Tantric College in South India. Her translation and interpreter skills have been enhanced by intensives and trainings, and she translated some short texts into English and German. She also contributed to one of the Basic Program summer intensives at Kopan Monastery as teaching assistant.
While continuing her studies at Kopan Nunnery and Sera Monastery, she is now very much interested in doing more written translation. She has accepted to work on Basic and Masters Program translations for FPMT, and is currently working on the translation from Tibetan of the root verses of The Tathagata Essence.
