How best to Study Sanskrit ? and Homework from day before Yesterday class

[Ravi Ravishankar]

During the class, Sudha Bhagini asked - how best to study the Sanskrit Language ? 

I gave a very general and common answer - Practice Loudly and repeatedly several time at home what we have done at each class. Act it out ! visualize what you are saying ! This was the simplest answer that I could give and I think also a very valuable at this stage of learning.

However, there are well thought out and proved-in-the-past methods too to learn Sanskrit. My personal experience as a student of Sanskrit suggests that since Sanskrit is a structured language, a structured learning also is the best way to  get the most out of your hours of practice. I will talk about it one of these days in more detail and with demonstrative examples that makes it self evident. You will see yourself how you can accumulate hundreds of words to your word bank within an hour ! It sounds amazing! But it is true and is possible only in language like Sanskrit ! (I am not aware of any other current languages where you can achieve this. Perhaps possible with other ancient languages like Latin and Greek, but I am not familiar with those languages.) 

But we have to wait for a time that is more appropriate. Please be patient. 

For now, I want to tell you one sure of way of not been able to learn Sanskrit - "By not practicing at home" ! You can attend the classes all through the year - and you will get no where if you do not practice at home!

Reminder about the home work -  We practiced following patterns (see below as an example for the Verb  Patathi  - meaning to read) in the class for Kriya pada (Verbs - Action Words). In your hand out, on the first column you have a list of 30 to 40 words that represents action. For each of these 40 words, try to practice the complete pattern until you are very conversant with using all these verbs. We did all these in class, so you should be good to practice.

Here are the pattern for verb - PaTathi (my english transliteration is not perfect, but try to remember the sound we produced when practiced n the class. The english transliteration is only given us a guide line. If you are not sure about pronunciation then ask someone or call me. Do not practice with wrong pronunciation that is later difficult to undo.)

Aham  (I)   PaTaami (read)

Vayam (we) paTaamaha (read)

Bhavan (You - man) PaTathi

Bhavathi (You - woman) PaTathi

Saha (He)  /  Saa (She) / Te ( They - all male or mix of male/female) / Taaha (all female) / Taani (all neutral)  PaTathi (read)

Also practice counting. Practice 1 to 20, 20 to 1 in reverse order, practice to say in single breath as we did in the class.

See you next Thursday when Annapurna Bhagini will conduct the class ! With her beautiful voice and musical ability and command on the language, I find those classes lot more interesting. She will be teaching how to request or command others to do something for us (very important!) and also to tell about things done in the past. So it will be very important class.

If you are unable to attend the class once in a while, please let us know through an email by Tuesday and also plan to get with someone later who attended the class and catch up with the practice done in the class. This is a moving train and will not stop. You are either on board or left out on the platform. It is entirely your choice and rest of us will respect your choice ! But do not have one leg on the train and other on the platform, it could be dangerous ! 

Good Luck !

Best regards

Ravi