Rating: 
Summary: A perverse production best avoided by beginners.
Review: Although Coulson's 'Teach Yourself Sanskrit' is, in many ways, an excellent and extremely thorough textbook, it is hardly suited to the average beginner. Most of us are drawn to Sanskrit because of a prior interest in The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, The Mahabharata, The Ramayana, even The Hitopadesa. Coulson, however, has chosen - perversely it seems to me - to draw all of his examples from Sanskrit drama, a branch of Sanskrit literature which is of minimal interest to most readers. Even worse, he seems to have designed the book primarily for exceptionally gifted students, and for those who are already competent in an ancient inflected language such as Latin or Greek. His procedure, in other words, betrays an elitist attitude that has resulted in a book which, rather than teaching anyone Sanskrit, is far more likely to put them off for life. I gave up in despair about halfway through the book, and so have many others.This is a pity, as Sanskrit is an exceptionally beautiful language, but there is a remedy at hand. Instead of wasting one's time with Coulson, the beginner would be far better off acquiring a copy of Thomas Egenes 'Introduction to Sanskrit' (2 volumes). Almost all introductory treatments of Sanskrit have been produced for linguists, but here finally is a truly practical and useful primer of Sanskrit for ordinary folks and human beings. After working one's way through it (and finding out why India really loves its sacred literature, epics, and wisdom stories), Coulson might be tackled with profit ... but not before.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: Being a classics student and having had prior Sanskrit instruction from a live person, my impressions of Coulson's text are considerably different than those of other readers here. I do not find the text very difficult given my background, though it suffers from some poor organization. This book is obviously geared towards Indo-European philologists - not casual students of Gita. I very much enjoy that the bulk of examples are drawn from Sanskrit drama because the grammatical structures are generally more complex than those used in the sacred works and the vocabulary is far richer.
It is my personal opinion that declensions should be learned one at a time with all case endings and that all denominatives should be grouped together unless comprising their own declension. I also prefer that paradigms be written out in their entirety for all conjugations and declensions regardless of overlap if an index is to be useful; Coulson's is far too abbreviated and omits a number of forms altogether.
Overall, I believe Coulson has made a significantly useful and original, albeit not easily accessible contribution to Sanskrit scholarship. This book would have been more effective as a "Teach Yourself" course if it had broken down concepts into smaller, more numerous chapters and provided a plurality of examples for each and every grammatical concept.
This is a very worthwhile grammar for its unique approach and explanations, it just isn't easy to grapple with as a first text. I would recommend it only to students interested in the language for its own sake, and when able to go through some Sanskrit alone with a dictionary. Once you learn the ins and outs of "Teach Yourself Sanskrit Complete Course", the text works nicely alongside with Whitney's verbal roots book for quicker form identification.
Rating: 
Summary: A Book for the Educated
Review: Coulson's Primer is definitely a book for the educated. The very fact that later "introductory" books have been dumbed down is testimony to that fact.
The most ideal candidate for this book is someone with 3-4 languages under their belt. And even then, you will need a Sanskrit Grammar, a Very Good Dictionary, as well as a Verbal Root book ( All available from Motilal Banarsidass publishers), as well as a few handbooks with specialist information if you are reading certain Puranas.
Probably the best way into this book for those without a background in classical languages is with a study group, or a Sanskrit class. On average, you will likely need 6 months experience in reading and translating before this book becomes totally useful.
About the best recommend I can give in the popular sense is if you watch a lot of Hindi Movies, is that it allows you to understand the Sanskrit "asides" that the Bollywood actors give... the sanskrit is spoken, and is still used ( in much the same way as some people will cite Latin, greek, and some extent ,middle to old english).
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good teaching book
Review: I bought this book when I was just beginning to learn Sanskrit because it was the cheapest thing on the market, and because I read that it had linguistic sidenotes in it (which, being something of a linguistics geek, appealed to me). While the book certainly makes interesting reading, and would probably be useful as a reference grammar for more advanced students, I found that this book was extremely unhelpful in trying to learn the language.
Most glaringly, there are only 15 chapters. This means that each chapter covers a huge amount of grammar. While it is not too much for a person to learn, there are not nearly enough excercises for one to practice sufficiently. The size of the vocabulary is more manageable, but this simply means that one doesn't get a very extensive vocabulary, and vocabulary is *very* important. Additionally, the author soon abandons teaching things to us. Instead of teaching the cases beyond the nominative and accusative, readers are encouraged to simply use the reference grammar. Yes, one can always go to the back of the book and learn it themselves, but the chapter excercises are not geared towards this, and do not reinforce the information.
Overall, I was left with the feeling that, while I would be able to learn Sanskrit from this back, I might as well just get a reference grammar. I am now using Egene's book and find it extremely helpful. I recommend this instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best Sanskrit Primer
Review: I can certainly recommend this book to all university professors teaching Sanskrit and to all those individuals who know everything about Sanskrit, and now want to see what the respectable author has to say and know about Sanskrit. But if you do not know Sanskrit and want to learn it, do not spend your money and do not waste your time on this book. I love `Teach yourself ...' series, I used some of their books and this book was my first disappointment in that series. On three occasions I started my study but I could not go past the first chapter. The author assumes not only that you know Greek and Latin but also that you know Sanskrit and then passing lightly over important grammatical points and rules, spends most of his and yours time to give you some subtle hints about some exotic uses of Sanskrit grammar. So avoid this `Look what I know about Sanskrit, you will never be as clever as I am' book and try something else.
Rating:
Summary: a clearly written book -- but you have to know how to use it
Review: i read the reviews and then purchased this book, and so far i'm extremely happy with it. but i'm perhaps close to the "ideal" audience for the book -- i have experience with latin and linguistics. [in fact, i very much appreciate the linguistic explanations, which annoyed another reviewer so much, as it has helped me make sense of a lot of otherwise very confusing aspects of sanskrit. if you don't like the info, you can always ignore it.] you have to know how to use a book like this. it's dense and assumes some general linguistic knowledge, so you may need to skip back and forth as particular aspects become clear. [the author in fact expects you to do this -- in order to keep related info together, he often includes advanced info, denoted with parentheses, that you are not expected to tackle until you handle later chapters.] you definitely need to keep referring to grammatical and sandhi tables. but the fact is, sanskrit is *not* an easy language by any means. if you haven't already learned another language, you really shouldn't be starting with sanskrit. this book does a remarkably good job of covering the essentials of sanksrit given its size -- something that would not be possible if it had to spend a lot of time on detailed explanations of basic linguistic concepts. imo, this book does a lot of things right: [1] it does not force devanagari down your throat. i have nothing against devanagari, but having to learn even a simple language while dealing with an unfamiliar alphabet makes it orders of magnitude more difficult. i speak from abundant experience here. e.g. recently i also tried tackling ancient greek, and soon gave up because of this -- and the greek alphabet is far easier than devanagari. [for one, you're already familiar with it; and it lacks the complex ligatures and variant letter shapes of devanagari.] [2] the explanations are clear and concise, but do not omit essential details in a misguided attempt to "simplify" aspects of grammar that are inherently complex. [3] compounds and sandhi forms are carefully analyzed into their components. [one reviewer actually complained about this; but imo it's far better to have this info and not want it than vice-versa -- you can always ignore the extra diacritics.] [4] there are many useful tables. my main complaints are [1] the cheap binding; [2] i'd like more reading passages, not just sentences; [3] i'd like to see more systematic presentation of vocabulary, esp. in groups of related items -- basic adjectives [good/bad, big/small, etc.]; basic verbs; kinship terms; the 100/200/500 most common vocabulary items by frequency; etc. [unfortunately, very few language books of any sort do this well, and i simply don't understand why.]
Rating:
Summary: A few thoughts for language beginners, particularly Sanskrit
Review: I'll state the most important fact first: Sanskrit is NOT an easy language. Coulson notes this in his introduction by clarifying the differences among "living", "dead", and "learned" languages and by stating that Sanskrit belongs in this last category. The Coulson grammar was the first grammar I purchased, and I still find it to be a well-written introductory grammar (emphasis on Introductory!) True, the book does have its faults; but the same criticism can be leveled at any textbook. For those experiencing difficulty with the Devanagari script, there are excellent writing primers for learning just the script. Some of these primers also that explain idiosyncracies (like variant letter forms). For those students exasperated at the density of material, I suggest moving more slowly through the difficult sections: furthermore, one is not prohibited from re-reading (several times, if necessary) particularly intractable sections. Learning Sanskrit in a self-teaching course is not an Olympic time-trial; patience and hard work will open these things to our understanding. Finally, if you still find the going difficult, set the material aside for consideration or find another primer: Coulson's paedagogical technique is his own and will not work for everyone. Om mani padme hum.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, though challenging, book
Review: Teach Yourself Sanskrit by Michael Coulson is, in my opinion, a thoroughly excellent method to learn sanskrit. From the beginning of the book to the end, information was presented in a straightforward manner and provided relevant information about Indo-European history and linguistics. The biggest problems that I had with this book was the sheer amount of information presented per unit: in order to complete the exercises, one must first spent quite a long time with the material contained within that respecive unit. This book is not for everyone, however, as it assumes that its students already will have quite a large background in linguistics. Its language and method of presentation would be, I think, unintelligable without prior studies in Latin or Ancient Greek. Altogether, this book is an excellent book if you are already moderately accomplished in this or related fields. It is definitely not for the beginner.
Rating:
Summary: This book is great if you have a Phd in linguistics!
Review: This book is probably a great book if you a have a firm backround in lingustics, but it is hardly a "beginers book". Its introduction to the script is also very confusing. I am going to exchange this book for Thomas Egenes book, everyone seems to say that it is much more suited for the beginer.
Rating:
Summary: A great introduction to Sanskrit
Review: This book was exactly what I was looking for when I ordered it. It covers all the essentials, and does a thorough job of it. As you make progress with Sanskrit, you'll want to get other materials, doubtless. But for a price of ..., this may be all you ever need, if you just want a look into the language and a feeling for how it operates. Many weeks of study material here! Very well done!
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