Sanskrit for Absolute beginners - Lesson 1: Vowels

So, these set of instructions are to facilitate learning sanskrit for those just starting out, who can't even read devanagari and need somewhere to start. 

While I'm no expert, what little has been learnt through my gurus', we shall attempt to help you learn too. We will use resources from around the internet and see how best to present it for a beginner. 

Devanagari Letters

First lesson is to see, recognise, and learn to pronounce and write devanagari letters. Lets just start with some vowels first. 

Here are the vowels in devanagari and in IAST:

अ a 

आ ā 

इ i  

ई ī 

उ u 

ऊ  ū 

ए e 

ऐ ai 

ओ  o 

औ au 

ऋ ṛ 

ॠ ṝ (You won't be seeing this often)
लृ lṛ (You won't be seeing this often)
लॄ  lṝ (You won't be seeing this often)

अं aṃ 

अः aḥ

Note: In IAST, if there is a line above a letter, that is a prolonged vowel - what is called deergha. (When you watch the video below it will make sense.)

Now, to see how they are pronounced, please watch this video from 1.04 - 3.15
(You can watch the entire thing if you want to, but we will go through everything at the right time so you are not overwhelmed):

Now hopefully you have an idea about how to pronounce each letter. 

Now, we also need to give you some practice on writing these letters. 

Now here is a good video that teaches how to write these vowels. Some of the videos on youtube were teaching some wrong techniques, so i thought of choosing one that is accurate to avoid confusion. If any doubts, usually you can trust the indian video (if there is a choice!)! 

Of course many westerners do an amazing job (some - but not all - are better than Indians!), but there is a small chance of making some mistakes if you have not been writing this language since you were a kid.

So, here is a page from the book 'learn sanskrit in 30-days' and it seems to give a nice diagram on how to write each of these vowels. Some of it may look different to the video, in any cases of differences in opinion, just follow as taught in the video please :) :

Homework

Okay so, next lesson will be up in a few days time. 

Till then your homework: Every day write these vowels on a piece of paper and practice saying them as you write. 

Those of you who are in contact with me already (Sorry no more students, already have 3 people who will be sending me homework), please send me a photo everyday of your piece of paper, so we can make corrections as we go along.

If you have any doubts, feel free to ask here or personally message me, if you have my contact. 

Next lesson will be on some consonants.

Till then - take care and ...

धन्यवादः dhanyavādaḥ (Thank you). [psst, you learnt your first sanskrit word!]