Learn Pali: Best way to start? 5 Tips to make it easy

Once people have answered the question: "Why learn Pali?"
The next query is:

"How do I learn Pali?"

Here’s the way I suggest you begin with your study of Pali.

1. Build foundations for language learning
2. Start at the right level
3. Stick with it
4. Build vocabulary
5. Make use of the Pali language tools

1 Build foundations for language learning

One thing that you really should have before beginning to learn Pali is a basic understanding of general grammatical terms and concepts. Many of the Pali language grammar guides seem to assume you have studied Sanskrit or Latin before. If you haven’t, and you really don’t know the difference between a subject and an object, or the meanings of such terms as nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, or declension and conjugation - then perhaps you should spend some time studying English grammar. I found that even though I'm a native English speaker I had to do this in order to progress. And, while I have made a certain effort to explain the grammatical terms I use on this blog (see the Glossary), it is important that readers are familiar with the basic concepts. Which leads in to the next point...

2 Start at the right level

Its all too easy with Pali to pick up a guide like Warder's 'Intro to Pali' and be overwhelmed. Many of the so called 'Intros' and guides out there presume some previous knowledge of Latin or Sanskrit!

If you're an absolute beginner, I recommend starting with one of the Pali primers like:

Lily de Silva’s the Pali Primer (also available here) is possibly the easiest. This is a simple, if rudimentary introduction to the language. Each chapter deals with just one aspect and offers lots of exercises. (See Pali Resources page for answers to exercises).

Narada Thera's An Elementary Pali Course (also freely available here). It is a complete beginners course in Pali that moves a bit faster than de Silva's Primer, and covers a more in-depth range of topics.

Pāli for New Learnersis a new course aimed at those wishing a more conversation based learning approach.

But there are many others, so check out the 'Basic courses' section on the Resources page.

If you prefer to learn through videos, although I'm no expert, I've put together a series of brief video lessons to help the absolute beginner with the Pali language and the various grammatical terms. The videos begin with some English grammar basics and work up to the Pali case system.

For more visit my Learn Pali Language Channel on YouTube.	youtube.com/@LearnPali
And if you to keep up-to-date with the latest tutorial releases, please feel free to subscribe. (don't forget to hit the bell icon or you won't get all the updates!)

3 Stick with it

Of course anything worth doing, including learning Pali, takes time and effort and the more you put it the quicker and more successful the process will be. That said - RELAX. This is supposed to be fun. Making mistakes is part of learning. Find your way of learning. Here are some ideas.

Start a Learning Journal. If you are busy set timetables & goals. Make notes of key grammar points, vocabulary etc. and write out your attempts at the various exercises. Mark where you have made mistakes so in the future you can see just how much you have progressed. I found having an organised method for listing vocabulary very useful as I progressed I didn't have to search through page after page...

A TED talk to inspire you:

4 Learn Vocabulary

If learning Pali vocabulary, why not start with the most frequently occurring terms in the Sutta Pitaka?
There are:

• 3 terms that occur over 100,000 times...
• 70 terms that occur more that 10,000 times...
• 900 terms that occur more than 1000 times....

If you learn just 900 words you have covered 42% of all word occurrences in the Sutta Pitaka!
Pali terms sorted by frequency

Raw Frequency data
[966K+ entries]

Entries with definitions
[10K+ entries]

There are also apps to help with this like Memrise: Memrise.com Pali courses
Interestingly, if you wish to read and listen there is now SuttaCentral Voice where you can listen to the texts being read in both Pali and English.

5 Use tools

Make it easier for yourself.

• Get Pali Keyboard so you can type diacritics directly or check out my Velthuis diacritic conversion tool.
• Familiarize yourself with the Pali alphebet and how to use dictionaries. And
• Learn how to navigate the Suttas and their numbering systems.

Here's a brief overview of some tools & resources to help you start with your study.

The Suttas

First you will need access to the Buddhist texts known as the Tipiṭaka. There are many renditions available online. I recommend:

• SuttaCentral as it contains the entire canon as well as many modern language translations.
  One very cool feature at SuttaCentral is their translation pop-up. To enable this, navigate to the required sutta selecting the English translation; then click on the cog-wheel icon marked 'text settings'. This will bring up a text box where you can choose to view a translation 'side by side' (this only works from the English translation page). This will give Pali text and English translation side by side.
  And below this, on the same menu, if you scroll down, is 'Activate Pali word lookup'. By selecting 'Pali->English', and then if you hover our mouse over any Pali word, a short English translation pops up. It's fun, if not very comprehensive. I've provided a video tutorial to Sutta Central here...
  
  
• The Digital Pali Reader (available online) is a most useful tool for the amateur translator. It provides a database of the Tipiṭaka in romanised script with a search facility and the inbuilt dictionaries allow for instant lookup of words. It does not provide translations - which is where SuttaCentral is useful.
  
  
• Like the DPR, the Tipitaka Pāḷi Projector (TPP) is a standalone version for download, providing the Tipiṭaka in romanised script with a search facility and the inbuilt dictionaries allow for instant lookup of words. The project by Bhante Subhuti aims to produce the best Pali reader possible. There's now a TPP YouTube channel providing help.

Dictionaries

Of course the Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary aka the PED, is essential. More than 20 years in the making, it's available to search online.

• The Digital Pāḷi Dictionary (DPD) is a feature-rich Pāḷi-English dictionary which runs on GoldenDict. The DPD recognises an awesome 1.1 million unique inflected forms of Pāḷi words, automatically recognising the stem words to which that inflected form belongs.

There are many more on the Pali Language Resource page but this will get you started.
I hope this has been of some use.
Next post up: How to Navigate the Sutta Pitaka's various numbering schemes. Metta.