About Trikāya Tibetan Language Academy
Learn Tibetan from an Expert Translator.
Study Classical, Colloquial, Modern Literary, and Buddhist Textual Tibetan with personalized one-on-one instruction from a professional translator with 20+ years of Tibetan language study, 17+ years of professional translation and interpretation experience, and 11+ years of traditional Tibetan Buddhist training in India and Nepal.
Whether you're studying Buddhist texts, learning conversational Tibetan for travel, preparing for academic research, or developing professional translation skills, Trikāya Tibetan Language Academy provides expert guidance tailored to your specific goals.
Humbly serve the Tibetan language, genuinely study the Tibetan language, and sincerely teach the Tibetan language to people all around the world.
– THE MISSION STATEMENT OF THE TRIKĀYA TIBETAN LANGUAGE ACADEMY
Our mission is to help dedicated students of Tibetan around the world attain their learning goals, spread awareness about Tibetan culture and literature, and promote Tibetan language around the world.
Through our Tibetan language courses, we accomplish our mission of increasing knowledge of the Tibetan language to students from a wide variety of backgrounds.
HOW WE STUDY
Experience personalized Tibetan learning sessions under the guidance of Erick Tsiknopoulos, a seasoned Tibetan translator and scholar of Buddhist texts. Trikāya Tibetan Language Academy provides a powerfully effective online education experience for students of all levels. Our mission is to help students of Tibetan attain their language learning goals. Connection methods for the classes include Google Meet, Zoom, or WhatsApp. English and Tibetan are the language mediums of instruction.
WHAT WE STUDY
Courses are focused, but flexible by design. Every Tibetan course is specifically designed to suit each student’s personal learning goals. Students can choose to focus on Classical Tibetan, Colloquial Spoken Tibetan, Modern Literary Tibetan or Reading Buddhist Texts in Tibetan as their main subject of study. These subjects can also be taught at the same time in alternation or combination (depending on the course). Courses on several other topics are also offered. Special readings in Tibetan texts are available upon request.
TEACHING METHODOLOGY
Based on both modern Western academic and traditional Tibetan scholastic models of pedagogy and textual exegesis, the teaching methodology is unique, adaptable, inventive and well-suited to the needs of students in the modern world. This includes analysis and philosophical, historical and cultural commentary, contextualized within the broader spectrum of Buddhist and Asian Studies. Our courses explore topics and introduce material which is often relatively overlooked or even unknown outside the Tibetan communities themselves. The cultural, social, symbolic, mythical, historical and psychological dimensions of Tibetan language and literature are explored in-depth.
About the Main Instructor of the
Trikāya Tibetan Language Academy
Erick Tsiknopoulos
Erick Tsiknopoulos has worked as a professional Tibetan-English translator, interpreter and Tibetan language teacher since 2008, and has taught Tibetan language online since 2011.
He is highly literate in both Classical Literary and Modern Literary Tibetan (C2+) and has an advanced level of fluency in Modern Colloquial/Spoken Tibetan (C2+).
He studied Tibetan language & Buddhism intensively while working as a full-time translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts while living in the Tibetan refugee settlements of India from 2009 to 2019.
Erick Tsiknopoulos
Erick Tsiknopoulos first taught Tibetan language in 2008, and has been teaching Tibetan online since 2011. Since then, he has taught Tibetan language courses and seminars on Buddhist texts on a regular basis to students around the world.
He specializes in the development of learning materials and instructional methods for teaching Tibetan language to international students.
He is motivated by a strong aspiration to help others learn the Tibetan language in more effective and efficient ways — whether for their own personal spiritual practice or in meditation retreats, as future translators, interpreters, scholars and researchers of Tibetan, or just out of general interest in the fascinating language and culture of Tibet.
More About the Teacher
Erick Tsiknopoulos has spent over 11 years in the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal among Tibetan refugee communities, primarily while living there full-time from 2008 to 2019. In India he studied Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy intensively in a culturally immersive environment. After many years of diligence in his studies of Classical, Colloquial and Modern Literary Tibetan, he eventually mastered the art of Tibetan-English translation.
He studied Tibetan language, literature and Buddhism at various institutions of Tibetan learning in India. These include:
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The Manjushree Center for Tibetan Culture (Darjeeling)
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Thosam Ling Institute (Sidhpur)
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Dzongsar Shedra (Chauntra)
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The Tibetan Library of Works and Archives (Dharamsala)
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Esukhia (McLeod Ganj)
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Namgyal Monastery (McLeod Ganj)
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The Institute of Buddhist Dialectics (public classes in McLeod Ganj)
Study Tibetan with an Expert Translator
Benefits of Studying
with Erick Tsiknopoulos
Discover the benefits of studying Tibetan with Erick Tsiknopoulos, a passionate and experienced teacher who will guide you through this fascinating journey.
Having studied Tibetan language since 2004, including over 11 years spent in the Himalayan region engaged in immersive and holistic field research in Tibetan culture and Buddhist philosophy, our teacher, Erick Tsiknopoulos, offers students rare insights into the realms of Tibetan literature and Buddhist thought.
By drawing upon these first-hand experiences, he employs a distinctive cross-cultural teaching approach which is bilingual in nature and dynamically adapted for international students from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Being familiar with most topics in Buddhist philosophy and doctrine, he explains Tibetan texts to his students by way of detailed linguistic analysis, modern academic exposition, and traditional Buddhist commentary. In this way, the meanings and implications of Tibetan texts can be easily ascertained by students.
Ready to Start?
Email: trikayatranslations@gmail.com
Phone/WhatsApp: +40 769 824 828