I'll second Vyaas Houston's program. I bought the whole course and got about as deep as the different tenses which was more than I needed to translate slokas. Then I noticed some difference in Sanskrit pronunciation and when asking about that there is actually southern and northern Indian differences in Sanskrit pronunciation.
As for Woodroofe, I have the doctoral thesis that was published about 10 years ago where the author claims he may not have written most of those books and that the were written by his Indian friend would not have been published under his own name. Indian pronunciation of some consonants such as "v" can be difficult for westerners because they tend to pronounce it between a "v" and "b". I even had my teacher write mantras in Devanagari so I could be sure of the pronunciation. On 09/08/2011 08:30 AM, emptybill wrote: > The best way is to learn to correctly pronounce the > syllables of Sanskrit by hearing and practicing them. > > I learned in some basic courses by one of Vyaas Houston's > teachers. He starts from the very beginning by training > people to pronounce the Sanskrit alphabet and then goes > next to the Yoga Sutra-s by hearing them recited and > then repeating each sutra many times. > > The Pandit here at the temple loved the clarity of his > spoken and chanted Sanskrit and used to play his CD's > overhead while doing tasks around the temple. > > Here is his chakra-bija tape. It lights up my nadi-s like a > Christmas tree and demonstrated the power of the bija-s. > > http://www.americansanskrit.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=amsanskrit&S\ > creen=PROD&Category_Code=CDs&Product_Code=CD-1010 > > Bija Mantra, Chakra Tuning with Two Meditations [Bija Mantra, Chakra > Tuning with Two Meditations] Code: CD-1010 Price: $15.95 Shipping > Weight: 0.55 pounds Quantity in Basket: None Vyaas Houston. > Available in CD, with diagram of Sanskrit alphabet with chakras& easy > pronunciation key. > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister<no_reply@...> wrote: > >> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill" emptybill@ wrote: >>> >>> When I received the mantras from MMY in 1972 at the Fiuggi course, > he >>> gave them all with long vowels (Hreem rather than Hrim or Hrem). > Since I >>> had already read some of Sir John Woodroofe's books, I listened >>> intensely to make sure I heard them correctly. >>> >>> >> It seems it might be next to impossible to get the pronunciation >> right on the basis of *written* English. Listening to e.g. >> >> 'seen, sin' and 'been, bin' in Google translator >> >> sounds to me that the 'ee' in 'seen' is "sharper" (higher?) >> and longer than in 'been', and at least for me the difference >> between the quality on the vowels in 'been' and 'bin' is >> almost inaudible, whereas in 'seen' and 'sin' it's rather >> clear. So, in English the phonetic properties of the >> preceding consonant seem to "carry over"(?) to the following >> vowel quite strongly? >> >> Trying to write a grammar for English on the basis of its >> spelling might drive a "reincarnation of PaaNini" nuts? :0 >> >
