21-Point Plan to Learn Sanskrit
Learning Sanskrit by its linguistic elements भाषामूलकैः संस्कृतम् Recently I taught Sanskrit to two school kids during their vacation time. Of course the idea was to cover in advance whatever portion of their textbooks, I could, so that they would be that much at ease in their school. Having glanced through the text books, I am left wondering whether the text books help the students to understand the linguistic elements of Sanskrit. I am coming to an opinion that any language should be learnt by studying the linguistic elements of the language. Rather, you have learnt nothing of the language, if you have not learnt its linguistic elements. Basically linguistic skills are Reading, Writing, Speaking. For a child learning its mother tongue, the sequence is Speaking, Reading, Writing. But for learning a language like Sanskrit the sequence should start with reading and writing. It is implicit in the reading skill, that one understands the meaning of what one is reading. And...