“Sanskrit language, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect, the most prominent and wonderfully sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind.”
By Sri Aurobindo
It’s rightly said about Sanskrit as Sanskrit is an ancient and classical language of India in ever the first book of the world, Rigveda was compiled. The Sanskrit language is one of the languages of the Indo-European family. The Sanskrit language has its close relationship with different classical Languages of Indo-European groups like Latin Greek, French, German, etc. All the modern-day Indian Languages, like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Assamese, Konkani, Rajasthani, Manipuri, Punjabi, etc., are enriched with the words of the Sanskrit language.
Many people could also be beneath the impression that learning Sanskrit is extremely tough. Primarily thanks to the fact that it’s not been taught properly and has one thing to try to do with the incorrect notion that it’s not a communicative language.
In our opinion, learning Sanskrit doesn’t ought to be tough, on the contrary – it can be simply easy and fun. Some individuals might realize it to be a tough language to learn other than their mother tongue. It all depends on numerous factors like individual learning ability, age, and various other kinds of factors.
The duration, required to learn the language, depends on the purpose of learning the language. If you wish to learn the ancient traditional scriptures and texts, then it’ll take around 6 – 8 months to 1 or maybe 2 years. Whereas, if you wish to learn only spoken parts then it’ll take you around 3-4 months.
If you are interested in learning the language, a few are some of the important questions that one should ask oneself to know how long it might take to learn it.
What about your availability?
The decision on how many hours you can actually dedicate in a day may decide how much you will learn in the decided time. You can allot the time for learning but yes your time allotment for this goal will absolutely have a huge impact on your speed in learning the language.
Do you want to practice the language in your daily life?
Ask yourself, would you be using the Sanskrit language while communicating with other people. With more continuous practice, you can expect to feel more natural about using the language as well as in understanding it without having to look up in the dictionary for each and every word.
Do you want to study on your own or through a tutor?
If you are a beginner, definitely, you will need guidance and some advice on how to do it correctly especially with the pronunciation and complex words.
At Multibhashi, we offer trained tutoring to trainees through online lessons. For a better understanding of the language, you can rely on us.
Also, along with the above-discussed factors, there are other factors that decide how long it would take to learn the Sanskrit language fluently.
If we place individual learning capability aside, needless to say, that anyone who can learn the other language will learn Sanskrit and that learning Sanskrit doesn’t have to be compelled to be tougher than learning the other language – on the condition that we have a tendency to learn in a natural means that permits us to assimilate the live flow of the language.
So all we have to do in order to make Sanskrit learning easy and fun is to adjust our approach by paying attention to the natural way our mind learns new things. In addition to this, we should be aware of our objective to learn Sanskrit, which in turn will decide the duration you will take to learn Sanskrit fluently. Let’s discuss them here:
Purpose of learning Sanskrit:
Depends on what purpose you wish to find out. If you wish to grasp Sanskrit just like the Vedas and the Upanishads then it’d take an excellent deal of your time, 3-4 months or even a year or 2 for deep learning. However, if you wish to find out to merely have a conversation and understand the fundamentals, then you’ll succeed in acquiring the language in barely 2-3 weeks.
Prior knowledge:
If you have a hold of any other language, mainly any language from Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, it would be comparatively quicker to grasp Sanskrit. With this in two to three weeks you’ll be decent in it, can read stuff like simple prose and around 1.5–3 years, learning will be more or less like a great 2nd mother tongue and perfect speech and readability can comprehend poems with relative ease.
Set up of learning:
Your learning strategies play a vital role in how fluently you learn Sanskrit. If your learning is restricted to a room setting, then it’ll most likely take you longer to learn the same. If, however, you are exposed to Sanskrit outside the classroom setup, then you’ll curtail the time required to learn it. Reading, being attentive to the audios, speaking, all will facilitate your learning speed.
So all we’ve to do is to try to create Sanskrit learning straightforward and fun. Numerous aspects of learning ought to be emphasized and given priority within the proper time and in a proper manner.
As aptly said-
“ सिंहवत्सर्ववेगेन पतन्त्यर्थे किलार्थिनः॥”
It translates to, “Those who intend to get work done cast themselves on the task with all possible speed, like a lion.”
So aim, plan and learn Sanskrit.