Learners for Serious (?) Language Learning in 2022 - Part Two of Two

Great Introductions that can be Obtained for Free on the WWW! Only... Mostly not in English

We will now turn to two primers (i.e. introductory grammars with copious amounts of exercises in which one can try to make sense of sentences and/or small texts with the aid of the grammar explained and the vocabulary lists provided) which can be acquired (legally, I dare say) for free online. Both these works provide the learner with much valuable information and may prove of great help in mastering the respective target languages to such a degree, that one can eventually make sense of other, original texts in these languages without feeling too frustrated about the syntactical intricacies that one is bound to encounter in such original writings. Indeed, both titles are my personal recommendations to my readers, who may wish to start studying with these free resources.

The first title that I wish to present is: Sanskrit für Anfänger - Ein Lehr- und Übungsbuch by Thomas Lehmann, which can be downloaded here (the complete learner can be downloaded, in three parts, or volumes, in the section ‘Downloads Sanskrit,’ a bit in the lower part of the site I have linked to). This German work is considered a good introduction to Sanskrit as the classical language which it, first and foremost, is. Having used it for some time, I have become convinced myself that it is also most suitable for self-study. The texts which the learner is encouraged to read to conclude each lesson are not spectacularly funny or compelling, but they do serve their function as regular touchstones for the learner to determine whether he has grasped the grammar and remembered the vocabulary thus far learned well enough (however subjective “well enough” may be, of course).

The second work with which one can try venturing into the realm of a very interesting and historically highly important language is in Russian. The language this method offers the learner a way to get acquainted with is Classical Chinese. It’s titled Ханмун. Вводный курс (English: Hanmun. An Introductory Course) and authored by Julia Boltach, who herself has a link to this work on her Academia page, see here. This introduction is in a couple of ways special: Firstly, it offers the readings of the characters in Korean, not Mandarin Chinese. The language it attempts to convey to the reader/student, Classical Chinese (AKA Literary Chinese) is in fact called Hanmun in this work, which is the usual Korean appellation thereof (Hanmun being 漢文, or “the written language of the Hàn”). Non-Koreanists who have a vested interest in learning Literary Chinese need not discard this work on account of it rendering only the Korean readings of the characters: They can still benefit from the grammatical and syntactical explanations in each lesson, and likewise they can find some good opportunities to whet their skills in analyzing and reading bits of Classical Chinese offered to the learner in the book’s frequent exercises. A second special trait characterizing Boltach’s course, which you would not generally find in any middle-of-the-road introduction of Classical/Literary Chinese, is the extensive use of fragments from original works compiled in what I will conveniently call Medieval Korea (especially the Samguk yusa (三國遺事) and the Samguk sagi (三國史記) to exemplify certain grammatical features and to provide the learner with sentences for him to translate. These bits from Korean works alternate with relevant chunks from works that may be regarded as standard, staple texts for the typical classical Sinologist (e.g. Confucius’ Analects, Mencius’ works, …). Finally, the approach followed by Boltach in this course, which is marked by its emphasis on syntactical analysis of simple sentences, with every lesson imparting to the reader new information on how constituents can make up a sentence. This course enables the read to become ever more aware of the simple, as well as the more complicated (certainly as the course progresses), ways of how individual parts of speech can be recognized, and how the relationships between these parts of speech should be understood. This appears to be a method which is fundamentally different from the way that most, if not almost all, written manuals on Classical Chinese in English (and, I dare say, other Western languages) espouse: Those course books tend to have the student/learner start reading a small text as soon as possible, whilst some grammatical notes are added only if some unfamiliar construction, that may not be understood at all without that note, is encountered. This “dive-into-the-deep-linguistic-sea-and-try-to-remain-afloat” probably has its advantages, though it may be that that (say, “Western”) method may best be combined with the more analytical, deliberately thoughtful approach found in Boltach’s teaching method, which also has much else in its favour, thanks to its pleasant Korean flavour!

In the past week I found, by accident, yet another language course book that can be downloaded for free. It is a grammar-cum-course book, the only one in English referred to in this article for Demotic Egyptian (at least for Demotic as written in some manuscripts, I have not studied the learning material yet, but its introduction clearly suggests that other textual sources in the same Demotic language can show quite jarring differences in writing conventions). For a link to it, click here.

This would be all this time round. I hope I will find time and inspiration to present you with something of interest that revolves around some text in a language or lingo that would merit some further thoughts and remarks that I can share with you here on Substack.