Introduction:
Sanskrit is the most ancient language and perfects among the great languages in the world. It is the greatest treasure of ancient India. Sanskrit is universally recognized as the language containing the earliest literature in the world. It has been established as one of the ancient branches of the Indo-European family of languages, and elder sister of the ancient classical languages of Europe like Greek and Latin; modern North Indian languages are derived from it, and even the south Indian languages are saturated with Sanskrit words. It is being said that there is more awareness and a growing interest in the West for Sanskrit studies in India. This is because Sanskrit is recognized as the earliest member of the Indo-European family by the world.
The perfect form of the Vedic Sanskrit language had already existed thousands of years earlier even before the infancy of the earliest prime languages of the world like Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, etc. People of every region in the country can easily relate to Sanskrit and that is the best tool to unite the country. There are many great works in Sanskrit. Recent research by the scientists of the National Brain Research Centre has discovered that reading Devanagari involves more areas of the human brain than Roman script. This means that Sanskrit is a good exercise for the human brain.
Moving on to the learning part of Sanskrit, it’s fabulous if you’re learning Sanskrit. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the top tips for improving Sanskrit listening comprehension skills:
Things to know
- Practice pronunciation – Listen to native speakers as much as possible, and take note of how words and sounds can blend, morph, or get dropped in rapid speech. A good accent will give you the ability to hear and pick out the otherwise unnatural new sounds. To develop your accent, focus on any sounds or letters that feel difficult or unnatural for you. Once you get more comfortable with the basic sounds, start to combine them using words and whole sentences.
- Read and listen – Another way to improve your listening skills is to use two sources of information at the same time. This simply means that you should be not only listening, but also getting your Sanskrit from another place at the same time. The easiest way to do this is by watching a video with Sanskrit subtitles. This way, you’ll be listening to and reading the words, which will make it easier to understand everything and will help you to remember more.
- Listen as you sleep – This kind of practice is perfect if you want to learn new words or improve your pronunciation. However, you have to choose your videos/audios properly. You don’t want to wake up and realize you have been learning English instead of Sanskrit! At the end of the day, you’ll be learning how to correctly pronounce those words and sentences, so you’ll also be practicing your listening comprehension and pronunciation skills. Yes, in your sleep.
- Immerse Yourself in the Sanskrit Language – The best possible way of learning a language, though, is through immersion. And that means living in India. When choosing where in India you want to live, be sure to choose someplace where Hindi is the main language. For while Sanskrit is the mother language of India for many purposes, it is only one of many. It’s even better if you can take a language course at the same time to improve your knowledge of grammar rules and pronunciation.
So, whether you learn best in a classroom, one-on-one with a teacher, or by yourself at home, practice Sanskrit listening to the way that’s best for you. These tips will help you improve even faster than before.