te, de and ste are the three continuative particles.
te is used after na, ra, la, sa and da-drak,
de is used after da. After ga, nga, ba, ma, ‘a,
and syllables without a suffix, ste ["te with a sa"] is used.
In Chapter 4, Milarepa finally meets his lama, Marpa the Translator. In this Unit, you will read the fourth chapter of this abridged life story while continuing to learn new grammatical constructions and expressions. You will memorize a traditional grammar verse about continuative particles, and practice word sequencing for some short Tibetan sentences.
When you’re ready to study Chapter Four, begin with 4.1 Grammar Preview and 4.2 Sentence Building. With those, you should be ready to try 4.3 Reading & Translation. You should also memorize the Tibetan grammar verse, review your grammar with 4.5 Sequencing Practice, and practice your pronunciation by following along with 4.6 Reading Aloud. Finally, in 4.7 you can watch the second part of a two-part video lecture by the Gyalwang Karmapa, speaking in New Delhi in 2014, about the significance of Milarepa's life story for Buddhist practitioners.
On the continuative particles
te, de and ste are the three continuative particles.
te is used after na, ra, la, sa and da-drak,
de is used after da. After ga, nga, ba, ma, ‘a,
and syllables without a suffix, ste ["te with a sa"] is used.
Rearrange the following words so that they make the phrase below in correct Tibetan word order. For help, press the Colors button to color words according to their grammatical categories, or the Hint button to show word glosses when hovering over a word.
When you are finished with an example, press Mark. If your answer is correct, then press Next to move on to the next example. If your answer is incorrect, then you may have to repeat the exercise one or more times. Press the Repeat button to do so. Note that this is just to give you more practice; repeat attempts will neither help nor hurt your score. When you have attempted an exercise as many times as allowed, then press Answer to see the answer.