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| Teach Yourself Sanskrit Complete Course (Teach Yourself) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Michael Coulson, Gombrich Richard, James Benson
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95 (58.73 RON)
Buy New: $16.47 (38.77 RON)
You Save: $8.48 (19.96 RON) (34%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 221356
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0071468528
Dewey Decimal Number: 491
EAN: 9780071468527
ASIN: 0071468528
Publication Date: April 14, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 A must for every sanskrit newbie October 12, 2006
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
What makes this sanskrit primer special is the easy with which you can read it. In contrast to the chippy style of other more "classical" books, you will realy enjoy reading this one - it gives you a lot of interesting background information about the language, which as I found, makes learning the stuff much easier.
Unlike other books, allmost all of the texts in the book are taken from original sanskrit sources. So you are directly confronted with what you most probably intend to do after being able to read in sanskrit - enjoing the sanskrit liteature in its original form.
Anyway, even I'm a newbie in sanskrit, I highly recomend the book - it is one of the best resources on sanskrit I found so far.
I could not exclude, that you are going to need other sanksrit resources also, however you should not miss this one - mainly becuase it is so motivating reading it, and also because of the background information you get, which you otherwise would not find in the more systematicly organized sanskrit primers.
And as I said, you will enjoy it - it is more like a gripping thriller than a boring textbook.
 Comprehensive but very hard August 5, 2006
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Struggling with this book, it is anything but a book for beginners. Unless you are a god of linguistics or already know Sanskrit, probably better to start somewhere (anywhere) else. I will grant Coulson that - it is comprehensive...
The best book for beginners July 13, 2006
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is by far the best introductory book for those interested in studying Sanskrit seriously on their own. The book is not easy, but then, neither is Sanskrit. Coulson presents Sanskrit grammar clearly, and his exercises are extremely useful. Completing this book will make it possible for a student to read relatively simple Sanskrit texts with a dictionary on his or her own.
A Book for the Educated September 29, 2004
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
Coulson's Primer is definitely a book for the educated. The very fact that later "introductory" books have been dumbed down is testimony to that fact.
The most ideal candidate for this book is someone with 3-4 languages under their belt. And even then, you will need a Sanskrit Grammar, a Very Good Dictionary, as well as a Verbal Root book ( All available from Motilal Banarsidass publishers), as well as a few handbooks with specialist information if you are reading certain Puranas.
Probably the best way into this book for those without a background in classical languages is with a study group, or a Sanskrit class. On average, you will likely need 6 months experience in reading and translating before this book becomes totally useful.
About the best recommend I can give in the popular sense is if you watch a lot of Hindi Movies, it allows you to understand the Sanskrit "asides" that the Bollywood actors give... the sanskrit is spoken, and is still used ( in much the same way as some people will cite Latin, greek, and to some extent ,middle to old english).
 Not for the faint of heart September 26, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
As a classics student having had prior Sanskrit instruction from a live person my impressions of Coulson's text are considerably different than those of other readers here. I do not find its presentation difficult to understand, though it suffers from some poor organization. This book is obviously geared towards Indo-European philologists - not casual students of Gita. I very much enjoy that the bulk of examples are drawn from Sanskrit drama because the grammatical structures are generally more complex than those used in the sacred works and the vocabulary is far richer.
It is my personal opinion that declensions should be learned one at a time with all case endings and that all denominatives should be grouped together for comparison. I also prefer that paradigms be written out in their entirety for all conjugations and declensions regardless of overlap if an index is to be useful; Coulson's is far too abbreviated and omits a number of forms altogether.
Overall, I believe Coulson has made a significantly useful and original, albeit not easily accessible contribution to Sanskrit scholarship. This book would have been more effective if it had broken down concepts into smaller, more numerous chapters and provided a plurality of examples for each and every grammatical concept. It does not merit the label "Teach Yourself". This is a very worthwhile grammar for its unique approach and explanations. I would recommend it only to students interested in the language for its own sake, and when able to go through some Sanskrit alone with a dictionary. Once you learn the ins and outs of "Teach Yourself Sanskrit Complete Course", the text works nicely alongside with Whitney's verbal roots book for quicker form identification.
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