Here is a quick tip to accelerate your learning of Sanskrit: focus on mastering pronouns. Here’s why.
Pronouns are high-frequency words and a key element in creating simple but meaningful sentences, which help you acquire the language naturally. You know, to say things like:
- He goes to that temple
- She lives in that city
- It drinks her water
- She sees him.
- He eats it.
And because of the inflective nature of the language, pronouns carry a lot of meaning in just one word, which varies depending on the context.
In Sanskrit, all the previous sentences can be written using just one pronoun stem: tad.
So by mastering the use of pronouns, you can begin to deconstruct the meaning of a sentence even if you don’t know the entire vocabulary.
And since pronouns are high-frequency words, you’ll find them often in Sanskrit texts like the Bhagavad Gītā and the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali.
तस्य वाचकः प्रणवः ॥२७॥tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥHis name is the word Om
—Y.S. I.27
The word tasya ( a declension of the pronoun tad), meaning “his” or “its,” appears numerous times in both texts.
So, if you want to learn Sanskrit fast, my suggestion is that you start by learning the different declensions of the pronoun tad, which is used to talk about something/someone that is far from the speaker, or not present.
Then you can apply that same skill to master the use of the pronoun etad, which refers to something/someone close to the speaker.
Since the pronoun endings are the same, it’s as if you were multiplying your vocabulary of high-frequency words by simply adding the letter “e” before it.
And that same knowledge will also help you master the interrogative pronouns, which will, in turn, help you master the indefinite pronouns.
So you’ll be growing your high-frequency word vocabulary exponentially by mastering just one pronoun.
This is why, in my Beginner’s Online Sanskrit Course, we start learning pronouns right from Lesson 1.
In that lesson, with only two words, we’re already able to create meaningful sentences—an excellent way to start acquiring the language naturally.
In Lesson 5, we take it even further, diving deeper into the use of the pronouns tad and etad. You’ll be creating sentences like the ones above and even more.
So, if you are ready to start your Sanskrit journey, you can visit my Patreon and join the Yogi tier to get immediate access to my Beginner’s Online Sanskrit Course.
For more tips to accelerate your learning of Sanskrit, you can visit my other articles:
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