Learning an ancient language is actually much easier than learning a modern one. Think about it. For a modern language, you need to speak, read, write and listen. For an ancient one like Pāli, you only need to read.
So why do people sometimes give up on language learning? A big problem is that many people find the first few lessons easy, then hit a wall as they get to lesson five and discover they have forgotten everything they learned in lessons 1 and 2. Some people blame it on age, or baby brain, or not enough sleep, but it’s the same for everyone. Humans forget things unless repeatedly reminded.
What’s the solution? You could make flashcards of all the words you learned and review them every day. But if you learn 50 new words per lesson, that quickly gets unwieldy. Reviewing 50 cards is fine. Reviewing 1000 is unfeasible.
The answer is Spaced Repetition. The idea is that you don’t need to review a fact every day. If you know it quite well, you might only need to see it once a month or once a year, but if it’s new, you need to see it again tomorrow to refresh your memory. Happily there are apps that take all the difficulty out of figuring out what cards to review today.
I use an app called Anki. I make flashcards on my computer for every word I want to remember, then review them on my smartphone daily. To maintain a deck of about 3000 cards, I only have to review about 50 a day, taking me about 20 minutes. The great thing is that as it’s on my phone, I can review a few cards in any spare moments I have - while waiting in a queue, while my toddler is playing, while dinner is cooking. I don’t need to find 20 minutes to sit down alone at a desk (not going to happen!). It just fits into time I wasn’t really using anyway.
This is my number one tip for learning Pāli quickly and easily. Good luck, new Pāli learners!
So why do people sometimes give up on language learning? A big problem is that many people find the first few lessons easy, then hit a wall as they get to lesson five and discover they have forgotten everything they learned in lessons 1 and 2. Some people blame it on age, or baby brain, or not enough sleep, but it’s the same for everyone. Humans forget things unless repeatedly reminded.
What’s the solution? You could make flashcards of all the words you learned and review them every day. But if you learn 50 new words per lesson, that quickly gets unwieldy. Reviewing 50 cards is fine. Reviewing 1000 is unfeasible.
The answer is Spaced Repetition. The idea is that you don’t need to review a fact every day. If you know it quite well, you might only need to see it once a month or once a year, but if it’s new, you need to see it again tomorrow to refresh your memory. Happily there are apps that take all the difficulty out of figuring out what cards to review today.
I use an app called Anki. I make flashcards on my computer for every word I want to remember, then review them on my smartphone daily. To maintain a deck of about 3000 cards, I only have to review about 50 a day, taking me about 20 minutes. The great thing is that as it’s on my phone, I can review a few cards in any spare moments I have - while waiting in a queue, while my toddler is playing, while dinner is cooking. I don’t need to find 20 minutes to sit down alone at a desk (not going to happen!). It just fits into time I wasn’t really using anyway.
This is my number one tip for learning Pāli quickly and easily. Good luck, new Pāli learners!