LRZTP (Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program) is an international school for translators and interpreters of Buddhism established by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the mid-1990s in Dharamsala, India. The school project was started as part of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe’s vision for spreading the Buddhadharma around the world, the aim fulfilled by FPMT (Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition). LRZTP is an institution affiliated with FPMT. Since its inception it has educated and trained highly qualified interpreters of Dharma, who work in Buddhist centres around the world.
The showpiece of LRZTP is the two-year language course organized in Dharamsala on regular basis, attended each time by a dozen or more students from all around the world. The course provides an in-depth and highly immersive education experience which combines Western academic approach to teaching and learning languages as well as traditional Tibetan methods for studying Tibetan language. Students participate in an intense course of learning modern colloquial Tibetan as well as Classical literary Tibetan in order to be able to read and translate ancient scriptures, interpret them for modern recipients and translate contemporary Dharma teachers’ commentaries to them. For this reason classes are taught both by Western lecturers and Tibetan native speakers with high teaching skills. Furthermore, students undergo training in interpretation and translation techniques supervised by accomplished interpreters and translators of Tibetan language and Buddhadharma.
Do you wish to go beyond just superficial understanding of Dharma and go deep into the actual meaning of teachings in Tibetan? Would you like to join the ranks of renowned interpreters of Dharma and work in your own or other Buddhist centres? Are you looking for an opportunity to study Tibetan language on a very high level and serve the Buddhist community in your native language? LRZTP is definitely the place you are looking for.
Currently LRZTP is recruiting students for its tenth 2-year course in Dharamsala. LRZTP 10 will begin on 17 October 2025 and is scheduled to run till October 2027. The registration for the program is open on LRZTP website, where you can find all the necessary details of the program, including the requirements for prospective students, particulars of the classes, portraits of the teachers as well as opinions from some of the graduates.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche often recommended the LRZTP program to his own students. He also often visited the school when he travelled to Dharamsala. On some of these occasions he spoke of enormous benefits of studying Tibetan and becoming interpreter and translator of Dharma, following the footsteps of such giants of the Buddhist world as the famous Tibetan Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo in 10th/11th century. Now another opportunity to study is open. If you feel like this is what you are looking for, do not hesitate and check out the LRZTP website. Perhaps in October 2025 you will join the elite of trainees on their path to becoming Lotsawas.
