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Learning Journal 3

I’ve found it interesting how every Sanskrit learning resource I’ve used (books and online) has approached the language from an entirely different starting point. Some have started with nouns and cases, other with the alphabet, some with samdhi, some without. I’ve been using two resources in particular this semester (an online and a physical book), and by using the two at the same time I’ve been able to increase my learning. I appreciate the exercises and examples in my textbook since I think learning by example and by doing exercises are the best way to drill in language into memory.

This is the reference for devanagari I've been using this semester. I copied it from a resource online and it's been incredibly helpful. Although I've tried to memorize everything, some letters are very rare or similar to one another and it's been very helpful being able to reference this sheet just in case. The chart's also been very helpful for figuring out exact pronunciation such as the retroflex consonants. This is probably the best resource I have in my journal so far! 

Learning Journal #1

Noun declension has been a really hard part of learning Sanskrit. English doesn’t have this concept, and it’s been really hard to have to memorize so many different noun endings. In English, we just have nouns that are coded for number: the boy or the boys. In Sanskrit, the word “boy” is also coded (declension) for gender, case, and number. So you have to determine is a noun is female, male, or neuter; what case it’s in (you’re probably familiar with subject or object, but Sanskrit also includes concepts like “with” “for” “of” in the noun ending); and the number. Sanskrit accounts for more noun number than English as well: a noun has a different ending if it is singular (the boy) dual (the two boys) or plural (the boys). I still have trouble with cases and have to look back at my declension charts pretty often. For just one noun, there are dozens of options of suffixes that carry so much meaning!