Complete Sanskrit Beginner to Intermediate Course: Learn to read, write, speak and understand a new language (Teach Yourself)

Haven't read yet but because I used the same series on Hindi learning so I purchased this. Hope it helps sincerely.

What I needed

I wanted to learn Sanskrit to be able to read some of the Ayurvedic foundational texts, such as the Caraka Samhita. First off, there is no alphabet chart anywhere in the book. I would expect for a "beginners" Sanskrit they might start with or at least have a chart of the alphabet. But one is not included anywhere in the book. Also, as someone who has a couple foreign languages under there belt, I am used to a more methodical approach to language. This one seemed fairly random and frustrating. It is very academic, but interesting from a historical perspective, but not for my purposes.

A nice book on sanskrit.

works great, just like picture.

Coulson Sanskrit is a Classic and no doubt a great book. However, for most self-learners it is too difficult and you will get hopelessly stuck after a few chapters, unless you have a very solid background in Latin or even better Ancient Greek. My Ancient Greek is pretty decent, but I still was unable to get through Coulson. I then did all the exercises of the two Sanskrit volumes by Egenes, and now I feel confident to complete the Coulson or any other university-level Sanskrit text book. I can also, for the first time in my life, read Bhagavad Gita in its original (with heavy assist by Wintrop Seargant's book). This has been a revelation. Good luck with your studies - and expect it to take several years of daily practice.

I worked through the first three chapters of Complete Sanskrit and decided to switch to The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit. Both books cover roughly the same beginner to intermediate level. But I prefer the organization of the Cambridge book, which provides a more complete overview of the whole structure of the language before diving in to particular topics. That better fits my own learning style and ultimately helps with memorization. Also, Cambridge comes with more extensive learning resources including YouTube videos. One particular annoyance is that the devanagari script in Complete Sanskrit is sometimes so small that it is not clearly legible since the quality of the printing is not as sharp. This is particularly evident in the table of conjunct consonants. To its credit, Complete Sanskrit provides an answer key to all of the exercises which is particularly helpful for self-study. (Cambridge does not.)

Its not for a beginner. Its not organized in a way that lends comprehension. Excessive linguistic jargon. Introduction of complex sentences with no real explanation to make sense of them. Id say its more of a description of a language written for linguists rather than a book for people who actually want to learn the language. Im not an inexperienced language learner, and ive probably read self -teach language books for over 40 languages. Id rank this one at the very bottom.