Hi there everybody, I’m new to this forum, so let me first introduce myself. I’m Maurice, I’m 23 years old and I am from Holland. I am still a student (I have studied Chinese Studies and other miscellaneous courses so far), and last year I also began studying Sanskrit. As I am interested in learning ancient Greek, I would like to know if anyone here is interested in learning Sanskrit. I’m looking for a kind of language exchange (text-chat or voice chat are both fine to me) where we could teach each other the basics of Sanskrit/Greek respectively and guide each other through simple texts.
I am certainly not an expert on Sanskrit as I have only studied the language a little more than half a year in college (though pretty intensively), but I have a fair grip of the basics and the Devanagari-script. So far I’ve worked through Jan Gonda’s A concise grammar of the Sanskrit language (I also have the German version if you prefer) and I also have Michael Coulson’s Teach Yourself Complete Sanskrit which so far I can fairly handle too, except for some sandhi parts which at times can be horrible and boring to go through;besides it’s better to see sandhi at work in a predictable (semantic/morphological) context. Lately we’ve started reading Charles Rockwell Lanman’s Sanskrit Reader in college, so if you would be particularly interested I could pass on to you what I’ve learned in translating Nala and Damayanti’s story (for the biggest part).
If you have one of these materials and/or if you have a better suggestion for working through some other online material and are struggling through learning the basics of Sanskrit I think I can help you. If you have a fair grasp of (the basics of) Ancient Greek (you don’t need to be an expert either) and can help me in my pronunciation then I am very eager to have a language exchange with you. So far I only have a Dutch textbook on Greek but if necessary I’m willing to buy a Teach Yourself-book.
Please let me know if you’re interested!
Maurice