Struggling to Learn Sanskrit? This Seemingly Unrelated Story Can Help

Are you struggling to learn Sanskrit? Let me tell you about my friend's struggles to learn the ukulele. Her journey perfectly illustrates how to learn Sanskrit more efficiently.

If you're a complete beginner learning Sanskrit, whether online or with a language teacher, this story will give you some valuable insights to speed up your progress.

My friend’s ukulele journey

A few months back, I met a friend who was trying to learn the ukulele. She said, “It’s really difficult,” and I replied, “Really?” with a suspicious tone.

So I asked her what she was doing to learn the ukulele.

She showed me some chord sheets. She was actually trying to learn to play by memorizing the chords from the chord sheets.

I was like, “What?!

I said, “Of course that’s difficult. That’s not the way to learn the ukulele, or any musical instrument!“

Seriously. Can you imagine trying to memorize all the different chord shapes just by reading them from a sheet? Where is the fun, the rhythm, the MUSIC?!

It couldn’t be more boring than that, right?

So I explained to her that the best way to learn the ukulele is by learning songs. That way, you learn not only the chord shapes but also rhythm, intonation, and so on. You know, music!

Of course, you won’t start by learning Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” You have to start with something fun, but suited to your level.

So I showed her how to play a ridiculously easy song. That was “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes. A fun song with only three chords!

But then she couldn’t manage the strumming pattern.

So I said, “Don’t worry about it. Just strum the chord once, sing the verse, and move to the next chord.”

After just a few minutes, she had already memorized the three chords, and after going through the whole song a couple of times, she naturally started to change the strumming pattern.

And she was having so much fun in the process. She was actually playing music.

What about Sanskrit?

On my way back home, I started to think about how similar that is to learning Sanskrit. Oftentimes, traditional teachers ask you to memorize endless declension tables, conjugation tables, sandhi rules, and so on, right from the start.

Sure, it is helpful to memorize all these tables. But, is it efficient? Is it fun? Absolutely not!

Just like learning chords through songs, the best way to learn grammar is in context. That is, by reading and writing in Sanskrit. In other words, it’s better not to focus on grammar, but on actually using the language.

That’s why some people recommend chanting Sanskrit mantras and ślokas as a natural way to acquire the language.

The problem is that those are way too advanced, especially for a complete beginner. It’s like trying to learn the ukulele with Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” Even with a word-for-word translation, you’ll struggle to learn the vocabulary or understand the meaning.

Trust me. I’ve spent countless hours listening to Sanskrit mantras and memorizing sutras and shlokas, and acquired very little of the language like this, except for the script.

How to learn sanskrit as a beginner

You gotta start with something much more basic, meaning simple sentences you can actually understand.

That’s why in my previous blog, How to Get Started with Sanskrit (a Blueprint), I recommended you start with a good reader and children’s stories like these:

They provide simplified stories, usually along with translations to help you understand and acquire the language.

The only problem is that most of these books require you to know the script used for Sanskrit, the Devanagari script.

Luckily, the script is very easy to learn. You can simply find an alphabet chart with the Roman transliteration and use it to start reading the language. You just need to match the Devanagari to the Roman characters.

It takes a bit of time, but it works. This is what I actually did while studying yoga sutras and Gita shlokas.

Want to skip the struggle?

But if you would rather waste no time and start acquiring the language as soon as possible, you can check my Beginner’s Online Sanskrit Course available on my Patreon.

In this course, you’ll acquire the script, vocabulary, and the structure of the language simultaneously by reading and writing simple sentences you can easily understand.

And we focus on the most common words and expressions first, instead of following the order of traditional grammar textbooks.

If you would like to know more, I suggest you watch the promo video and the introduction. That will give you a good feel for what this course is all about.