Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel great despair if the work in the office was not to my satisfaction. Since I have started pursuing this passion, work no longer dictates my life. Work is not the only thing that makes my life meaningful. I view work as one of the important things in life and not the only important thing in life. And that has made all the difference. My contentment and happiness level has gone up dramatically since I have been learning Sanskrit.
This is an extremely interesting perspective. I actually had the opposite experience. I was forced to learn sanskrit throughout my high school career and I absolutely hated it. I'm an extremely practical person and I have no use for the language at all.
There is no contradiction actually. While talking about the state of Sanskrit in school education, Chamu Krishna Shastry says[1] that schools are factories for producing students who hate Sanskrit.
IMO, whatever other reasons there may be, a most compelling reason for learning a language is its poetry (Robert Frost defined poetry as that which gets lost in translation), and here Sanskrit poetry is unlike anything in the world. You may like to read this collection of essays[2] that my friend wrote during his first real encounter with Sanskrit poetry.
Yes. (Mohan kindly included my name as "edited by", but all it means is that I read his essays and gave some feedback / made minor suggestions, before he posted it.)
The key phrase is "was forced to learn". I am not forced. I am doing it because I want to. I am also a very practical person. Sanskrit is a very useful language to me because it gives me great happiness.
I would say, knowing any foreign language, is a very rewarding skill. I'm not a 'natural' regarding language learning - I've to push it - but it definitely pays. In my case is Slavic languages with emphasis on Polish. It's a long-term hobby.
As a native, this is the first time I hear of someone learning Polish as a foreign language as a hobby, as opposed to having a partner or a job in Poland. This must be hard work. I am happy it works for you as a hobby :-)
Same. Language learning is a hobby of mine, and it's been absolutely rewarding. It's allowed me to do university courses through another language, learning more about the culture and stuff of another area. It's also enabled me to connect with more people on their own terms, an experience which has definitely made me a better person.
Interesting. We were in general decent at this language till class 10 (high school/secondary school). We were forced to learn it so while we got better at it we hated it and except one guy none of us continued this subject (as an elective) in class 11-12 (senior secondary) and that last guy too moved to Economics after class 11. In India class 11-12 used to have a 5th subject (elective) and even tough no one really did it for passion a lot of people took Sanskrit anyway (esp. for class 10 CBSE board exams) as it was also supposed to be a we scoring language. Don't know how much CBSE (kind of our national school board) has changed in last decade or so.
We used to have Sanskrit months and weeks when we were supposed to interact with each other pretty much entirely in Sanskrit. It had such a solid grammar and I'd say it was flexible too. I wish we were introduced to it in a flexible manner. I remember myself being able to rad Sanskrit books with relative ease. But, now? Last time I tried I couldn't. I kind of blocked this language out. I talked to couple of friends and they had similar experiences.
It all started a few years ago when I was burnt out due to reasons that are not relevant to this discussion. I happened to read some Sanskrit and I found it very relaxing. I then bought some Sanskrit grammar books (by Thomas Egenes) and would read them before bed time. I found reading them incredibly relaxing mainly because I was doing it with no particular goal in mind. I was doing it because I liked it. Before that I was doing everything in my life with some material objective in mind (promotion, money, sex). I never stopped reading Sanskrit since then and with each passing day I found I am happier and more content in life. Never in my wildest imagination I would have thought that an ancient language would have such a profound positive effect on my life.
I was in a similar situation as yours and I started learning Sanskrit as my hobby. It is a beautiful and a very logical language. I have been working towards improving my Sanskrit speaking ability more so than the grammar itself. It felt a lot more rewarding when I was able to hold a conversation using in my broken Sanskrit. If you haven't yet found a group to I would highly recommend finding one and practice your Sanskrit.
I'm pretty much a novice but I think you may skip the bracketed _you_ because it's idiomatic to skip it when its clear from the conjugation. E.g. (You) go and (you) find him.
Also guessing that he was using material and not learning at an institution, I should have used केन (using what) Or just asked कथा (how).
