[Buddha-l] Sanskrit textbooks

[Richard P. Hayes]

If you go onto Amazon.dot right away, you might be eligible to get a
copy of Maurer's two-volume Sanskrit textbook for free as part of some
kind of promotional thing they are doing. 

Also worth looking into is Thomas Egenes' two-volume textbook. I've
never taught from it, but some of my first-year Sanskrit students found
it very helpful as a complement to Goldman's textbook. I have used
Goldman's book before and found that students liked it, but the book was
for some reason almost universally despised by last year's students. It
unprecedentedly provoked many a rude comment on the course evaluations
this past year. On the other hand, the very best students in the class
loved Goldman's textbook.

Richard Nance's observations are very apt. For more than a decade I
taught only intermediate and advanced Sanskrit at McGill. Katherine
Young taught the beginning course, and I was the lucky guy who inherited
the students she had taught. Judging from the quality of the students I
got from her, she must be an extraordinary teacher. She told me that 95%
of teaching Sanskrit is psychology--knowing every trick in the book to
keep students from getting so discouraged that they quit (or commit
suicide). Anyone who has to learn Sanskrit without the nurture of a
teacher whose patience and kindness reach bodhisattvic proportions is in
for some for hard work. If you're the sort of person who enjoys riding
bicycles up steep icy hills heading into hurricane-force winds, you'll
love Sanskrit. If you're more of a beach bunny, you might settle for
Spanish.

-- 
Richard Hayes