Festivals and culture — Dashain and Tihar (lesson 18)
Vocabulary for Nepal's biggest festivals — Dashain blessings, Tihar lights, Bhai Tika sister-brother ritual, plus the calendar dates and key phrases.
Public-domain FSI Nepali Basic Course audio, streamed via our server. If the player shows an error, the source file may be temporarily unavailable — try again later.
FSI 1979, lesson 18. The cultural calendar every visitor should know before stepping foot in October. First half (minutes 1–6): Dashain — Nepal's biggest 15-day festival celebrating Durga's victory over Mahishasur. Vocabulary: tika (vermillion rice blessing on forehead), jamara (yellow barley shoots), Phulpati (the seventh day), Vijaya Dashami (tenth day, main day). The classic blessing: 'sukha, shanti, samriddhi' (happiness, peace, prosperity). Second half (minutes 7–13): Tihar — the 5-day festival of lights. Day-by-day vocabulary: Kaag Tihar (crow worship), Kukur Tihar (dog worship), Gai Tihar (cow worship and Laxmi Puja), Goru Tihar (ox worship), Bhai Tika (sister-brother day). Closing minute: cultural drill on accepting tika graciously — never refuse, never wipe it off.
More lessons
- beginner 26 min
Greetings, names, and numbers (lessons 1-2)
Opening Namaste, exchanging names, basic ho/hoina identity statements, and the cardinal numbers 1-10. This is the canonical FSI opener.
- beginner 19 min
This and that — yo, tyo, demonstratives (lesson 3)
Pointing at things and naming them. Yo (this), tyo (that), and the cha/chaina pattern for stating that something is present.
- beginner 13 min
Question words — ke, ko, kaha, kati (lesson 4)
All Nepali question words start with क. Drill the five most useful: what, who, where, how much, and which.
- beginner 15 min
I, you, we — pronouns and honorifics (lesson 5)
ma, hami, tapai, timi, ta — when to use which, and why mixing them up offends. Drills with the verb hunu (to be).
- beginner 25 min
Family members and kinship (lesson 6)
buwa, aamaa, didi, daai, bhaai, bahini — the relations every tourist hears at a homestay. Plus the kinship-as-address custom.
- beginner 21 min
Directions and places (lesson 7)
kahaa, yahaa, tyahaa — here, there, where. Asking where things are with the cha verb and locative postpositions.
Attribution
Audio courtesy of the US Foreign Service Institute (Public Domain) and hosted by Live Lingua. This page links directly to their CDN; we do not re-host or modify the audio.