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Words from Tibet and Bhutan

Tibetan and Bhutanese Dzongkha are related and share half their kitchen vocabulary. The names appear here as they are written in the recipes on this site – in Latin transcription, with the pronunciation beside them.

How to read it

th, kh, ph, chh: Single aspirated sounds, not f or sh: „thukpa“ is a t with breath behind it, „phaksha“ a p with breath.
ts: Like the ts in „cats“, sharp and short.
Stress: Spread evenly across the word – no syllable pushes forward.
Dzongkha: The language of Bhutan. Words like datshi, ema and paa belong to it; sha, momo and thukpa it shares with Tibet.

At the restaurant

Tibetisch	Say it like	Meaning
tashi delek	tah-shee deh-lek	The greeting that starts everything: on entering, on sitting down, on leaving.
shimpo du	shim-po doo	It is delicious. The sentence a host is waiting for.
ga tsö re?	ga tsur reh	How much is it?
thuk je che	took-jeh cheh	Thank you.
kadrin chhe la	ka-drin cheh la	Thank you – this is how it is said in Bhutan, in Dzongkha.

Staples

Tibetisch	Say it like	Meaning
tsampa	tsam-pa	Roasted barley flour, kneaded into a dough with butter tea in the bowl. The base everything else builds on – Tsam Thuk is the soup made from it.
balep	bah-lep	A pan flatbread, baked without an oven. Kham Balep is the thick one from eastern Tibet, Numtak Balep the deep-fried one.
thukpa	took-pa	Soup, usually with noodles. „Thuk“ alone means soup: Tsam Thuk is the barley-flour one, Thenthuk the one with torn noodles.
momo	mo-mo	A steamed filled dumpling. The word holds from the Himalaya to Lhasa and refers to the shape, not the filling.
chum	choom	Rice. Chum Marp is Bhutan's red mountain rice, which cooks longer and tastes nuttier than white.

Cheese, butter, chilli

Tibetisch	Say it like	Meaning
datshi	dat-shee	Melted cheese as a sauce – Bhutan's fundamental dish. Ema datshi, Shamu datshi, Gondo datshi: the same cheese, a different addition.
ema	eh-ma	Chilli. In Bhutan a vegetable, not a spice: Ema datshi is a chilli dish with cheese, not a cheese dish with chilli.
chura	choo-ra	Dried yak curd, hard as stone. Chura Kampo you suck on for hours; Chura Sabji boils it soft again.
mar	mar	Butter, usually from yak milk. It turns the tea into a meal and makes the tsampa dough workable.
zoedoe	zur-dur	A strongly matured cheese with a penetrating smell. Used as a seasoning, not eaten as cheese.

Meat and method

Tibetisch	Say it like	Meaning
sha	shah	Meat. The animal comes first: phaksha is pork, luksha lamb, jasha chicken.
kam	kahm	Dried. Sha Kam is air-dried beef; Shakam Paa the dish cooked from it.
paa	pah	Bhutan's braise with dried chillies: meat, radish, chilli, long over a low flame until everything is one.
eze	eh-zeh	A fresh chilli dip, pounded cold with onion and curd. It stands beside the meal, not in it.