How can i learn sanskrit language

Suppress the flow of air to pronounce semivowels. Semivowels are halfway between vowels and consonants. You might compare to the letter y in English, which is "sometimes" a vowel.

The air flow through the mouth is continuous, as with vowels, but it is lessened. Part 2. Organize consonant sounds by their points of pronunciation. If vowels are the sound of the breath, consonants represent a stoppage of breath.

When you pronounce words in Sanskrit, you stop the breath at different parts of your mouth to form the consonant sounds. The Sanskrit alphabet is organized logically with the vowels first, followed by the consonants, which are grouped together according to their points of pronunciation.

When naming a Sanskrit consonant, you simply add the vowel a to the end of it. Use the base of your tongue for soft palate consonants. To pronounce the soft palate consonants, stop the breath at the very back of your mouth by pressing the base of your tongue to the back of your mouth or the top of your throat. Stop air with the middle of the tongue for hard palate consonants. Hard palate consonants in Sanskrit are sounds that don't appear in English. To make these sounds, you'll press the middle of your tongue up against the roof of your mouth briefly.

If you're placing your tongue correctly, you'll make the sound correctly. Bend your tongue backwards slightly to pronounce retroflex consonants. Like hard palate consonants, retroflex consonants in Sanskrit are sounds unfamiliar to those who speak English. To make the sound, bend your tongue up and slightly back to press the tip of your tongue just behind the bony bump on the roof of your mouth. This is the ridge just behind your front teeth.

The sound is more rounded. Touch your tongue to your teeth for tooth consonants. To produce the sound of the tooth consonants, you press the tip of your tongue to the base of your top teeth to stop the air. This sound is unlike similar sounds in English, for which you stop air near the edge of your front teeth. Purse your lips to produce lip consonants. Lip consonants are the only Sanskrit consonants that don't use the tongue at all. Instead, you stop the flow of air by pressing your lips together.

The sound produced is close to the same sound you produce in English with consonants such as p and m. Create an extra puff of air for aspirated consonants. Unlike in English, aspirated consonants in Sanskrit are considered separate letters from their non-aspirated cousins.

To understand the difference, say the word "log" and then say "log home. You can also compare the difference between the p sound in "pit" and in the word "spit. These produce a sound similar to the related non-aspirated consonants, just remember that extra puff of air.

There are 2 hard palate aspirated consonants: cha and jha. Remember that the h following the first consonant is simply an indication to aspirate — this isn't a blended consonant. There are 2 tooth aspirated consonants: tha and dha. There are 2 lip aspirated consonants: pha and bha.

Suppress the flow of air to create s sounds. There are 3 different letters that produce an s sound in Sanskrit, each with a different point of pronunciation. While creating an s sound involves suppressing rather than stopping the flow of air, these letters are considered consonants, not semivowels. Try saying the word "petshop," but leave your tongue in the same position as it was for the t while you make the sh sound.

Say the word "friction," but leave your tongue in the r position while you make the sh sound. Understand the use of ha in Sanskrit. The letter h in Sanskrit is simply a voiced breath. By turning to the CDs, books, and other resources listed below, you can better grasp Sanskrit and pass it on to your students, enabling them—and enabling yourself—to have a more authentic experience of yoga. How much Sanskrit should you use in class? Only correct pronunciation will help you and your students tap into the consciousness of Sanskrit—and glean the full benefit of its energetic vibrations.

Despite what you may hear in yoga studios, the th in hatha should have a hard t as in tummy and not a soft th as in thin. The ch in chakra should sound like the ch in chat , not the sh in shine.

Passed down orally for centuries, Sanskrit was first written down around 1, B. At the end of the term, the student is able to read and understand basic sentences in the present tense and the active voice , can read Sanskrit script, albeit with some difficulty and with frequent recourse to transliteration, and will have acquired a vocabulary of around words.

You can enrol online here. New declensional types are explored and pronouns demonstrative and relative are introduced. By the end of this term of study, students will have a vocabulary range of around words. As with Sanskrit Beginners 1, there is a mid-way consolidation point, allowing for revision on areas that students have identified as difficult or problematic. There is also a consolidation session at the end of the term taking the form of a quiz concentrating on the material covered in Sanskrit Beginners 1 and 2.

Sanskrit Beginners 3 is a natural continuation of Sanskrit Beginners 1 and 2, devoted to building familiarity with basic Sanskrit constructions. The working vocabulary is extended to around words, allowing access to short texts of greater linguistic sophistication than in previous terms. There is a strong emphasis on developing learning strategies in terms of being able to grasp declensional patterns and also the theoretical bases of conjugation.

The reading of texts continues to serve as the means by which vocabulary and grammatical usage are explored. Important and widely used constructions are investigated such as the locative absolute and there is, as in Sanskrit Beginners 1 and 2, time factored in for consolidation.