Which language should I learn?

[winstonsmith 0]

I'm thinking about learning Hindi because I feel like I'm losing a lot of meaning when the books are translated into English, but should I learn Sanskrit instead? Hindi would be more practical, but do you feel like the books lose meaning when they are translated into Hindi from Sanskrit?

[SummerIndia 0]

Off course, if you are much in to religious thing Sanskrit could be the choice. Once learned, hindi as a language will not be a task to learn.

[Rayesri 0]

Hi, Learn Hindi it will help you to communicate with most of the people. Since the traditional Sanskrit is not in the spoken form, even if you learn Sanskrit, you may need a dictionary to study the holy books. Additionally learn Tamil. It is the living divine language in India. In Tamil also you find a lot of holy books with high thoughts.

[Amala 0]

I cannot answer specifically regarding Hindi, but as a student of linguistics and Sanskrit, I can tell you that usually any translation, regardless of how closely related the languages, loses something.

[Brahmagya 0]

I would advise you to learn Sanskrit, because it is a classical & beautiful language. Hindi, like most other Indian languages, are derived offshoots of Sanskrit - each much easier to follow & speak than Sanskrit.

So, even though learning Sanskrit may sound scary to most people, if learnt from a good teacher, I am sure you would find it much more logical to follow & hence captivating too!

Hindi can be learnt for practical purposes with a little extra effort after learning Sanskrit. But remember, please start learning Hindi only after learning an appreciable amount of Sanskrit whereby you can independently read/write/comprehend the meanings of a few sentences or paragraphs at a time. I suggest you don't mix them up trying to learn them simultaneously, at least in the beginning.

 

All the very best, TC.