---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Phillip Ernest
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:55:34 +0530
Subject: 2006 edition of Teach Yourself Sanskrit
To: teachyourself@hoddereducation.co.uk

Dear Teach Yourself Books, I’m writing to tell you something that you
must have heard from many others by now: that the 2006 reprinting of
Teach Yourself Sanskrit has serious problems. I taught myself Sanskrit
fifteen years ago using the earlier edition, and have continued to use
the book daily for review. That edition contained very few misprints.
Because that copy is now falling apart, I bought a new copy within the
last year, the 2006 reprinting, which appears not to be a new edition,
but has reset type. Within a month of use, I have found many, many
errors in both the Roman and Devanagari text. I am able to use the
text in spite of this annoyance, since by now I know it very well, but
for someone who is coming to the book for the first time with the
intention of teaching himself Sanskrit, these errors will be extremely
confusing and exasperating, and might even render the book useless.
This is really sad, because Teach Yourself Sanskrit is an excellent
primer, and many people have used it to do just what the title says,
despite the seeming unlikeliness of such an endeavour. The text must
be carefully corrected, or the previous text should be restored –
preferably the former, since the new printing does improve the
organization of the grammatical tables in the appendices at the back.

Phillip Ernest
Pune, India