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160 of 165 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a clearly written book -- but you have to know how to use it, May 27, 2001
i read the reviews and then purchased this book, and so far i'm extremely happy with it. but i'm perhaps close to the "ideal" audience for the book -- i have experience with latin and linguistics. [in fact, i very much appreciate the linguistic explanations, which annoyed another reviewer so much, as it has helped me make sense of a lot of otherwise very confusing aspects of sanskrit. if you don't like the info, you can always ignore it.] you have to know how to use a book like this. it's dense and assumes some general linguistic knowledge, so you may need to skip back and forth as particular aspects become clear. [the author in fact expects you to do this -- in order to keep related info together, he often includes advanced info, denoted with parentheses, that you are not expected to tackle until you handle later chapters.] you definitely need to keep referring to grammatical and sandhi tables. but the fact is, sanskrit is *not* an easy language by any means. if you haven't already learned another language, you really shouldn't be starting with sanskrit. this book does a remarkably good job of covering the essentials of sanksrit given its size -- something that would not be possible if it had to spend a lot of time on detailed explanations of basic linguistic concepts. imo, this book does a lot of things right: [1] it does not force devanagari down your throat. i have nothing against devanagari, but having to learn even a simple language while dealing with an unfamiliar alphabet makes it orders of magnitude more difficult. i speak from abundant experience here. e.g. recently i also tried tackling ancient greek, and soon gave up because of this -- and the greek alphabet is far easier than devanagari. [for one, you're already familiar with it; and it lacks the complex ligatures and variant letter shapes of devanagari.] [2] the explanations are clear and concise, but do not omit essential details in a misguided attempt to "simplify" aspects of grammar that are inherently complex. [3] compounds and sandhi forms are carefully analyzed into their components. [one reviewer actually complained about this; but imo it's far better to have this info and not want it than vice-versa -- you can always ignore the extra diacritics.] [4] there are many useful tables. my main complaints are [1] the cheap binding; [2] i'd like more reading passages, not just sentences; [3] i'd like to see more systematic presentation of vocabulary, esp. in groups of related items -- basic adjectives [good/bad, big/small, etc.]; basic verbs; kinship terms; the 100/200/500 most common vocabulary items by frequency; etc. [unfortunately, very few language books of any sort do this well, and i simply don't understand why.]
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67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A perverse production best avoided by beginners., September 4, 2001
Although Coulson's 'Teach Yourself Sanskrit' is, in many ways, an excellent and extremely thorough textbook, it is hardly suited to the average beginner. Most of us are drawn to Sanskrit because of a prior interest in The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, The Mahabharata, The Ramayana, even The Hitopadesa. Coulson, however, has chosen - perversely it seems to me - to draw all of his examples from Sanskrit drama, a branch of Sanskrit literature which is of minimal interest to most readers. Even worse, he seems to have designed the book primarily for exceptionally gifted students, and for those who are already competent in an ancient inflected language such as Latin or Greek. His procedure, in other words, betrays an elitist attitude that has resulted in a book which, rather than teaching anyone Sanskrit, is far more likely to put them off for life. I gave up in despair about halfway through the book, and so have many others.
This is a pity, as Sanskrit is an exceptionally beautiful language, but there is a remedy at hand. Instead of wasting one's time with Coulson, the beginner would be far better off acquiring a copy of Thomas Egenes Introduction to Sanskrit, Part 1 and, once having worked through that and to practise your reading, his Introduction to Sanskrit, Part 2. Almost all introductory treatments of Sanskrit have been produced for linguists and philologists, but here finally is a truly practical and useful primer of Sanskrit for ordinary folks and human beings. After working one's way through it (and finding out why India really loves its sacred literature, epics, and wisdom stories), Coulson might be tackled with profit ... but not before.
Another possibility newcomers to Sanskrit might consider is Charles Wikner's 'A Practical Sanskrit Introductory' (1996).
This is an extremely useful 146-page Sanskrit tutorial in 15 lessons which, besides teaching Sanskrit pronunciation, Devanagari, and some basic principles, has also been designed, as Wikner says, "to lift the English-speaking student who knows nothing of Sanskrit to the level where he can intelligently [use] Monier-Williams' A Sanskrit-English Dictionary."
He explains that Lessons 12-14 "penetrate Monier-Williams' dictionary through its four levels of alphabetical order, and suggest strategies for finding difficult words." After studying these three lessons, users should have no further difficulty with the dictionary; in fact, it will become a real pleasure to use.
The author has generously made his book freely available and it can be downloaded from: http://sanskritdocuments.org/learning_tutorial_wikner/index.html
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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best Sanskrit Primer, March 19, 2002
By A Customer
Coulson's text is a nightmare to use if you don't already know some Sanskrit. I highly suggest starting off with Thomas Egenes "Introduction to Sanskrit, Part I." Egenes text consists of 18 concise but simple lessons which provide one with a foundation in basic Sanskrit for building upon with more a thorough text. (In fact, Egenes states that his text is a "pre-primer;" I have to say, it is a most excellent one.) Coulson's text becomes much easier to comprehend. I also recommend taking a look at Devavanipravesika, the text used by Berkeley for its Sanskrit course. It is very thorough and not as difficult as Coulson's.
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