Dear Patrick and and others who may be interested. I
am re-sending this email that I sent earlier in the
year in response to a similar question. This is my
own (biased, of course) opinion of a good course of
study for Pali. Others in the group will perhaps
recommend other apporaches and books, and different
people leaarn more easily in different ways.

Good luck, and the most important advice I can offer
to all learning Pali - Keep at it! The rewards are
many.

With metta,
John
--- John Kelly <palistudent@...> wrote:

> Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 12:01:35 -0800 (PST)
> From: John Kelly <palistudent@...>
> Subject: books for learning Pali
> To: Pali <Pali@yahoogroups.com>
>
> Dear Susan and Charles and others new to this group
> learning Pali,
>
> I recommend the following 3 books (in the order
> below):
>
> 1. Start with the Pali Primer by Lily de Silva.
> This
> is a very accessible introduction to the language,
> and
> provides lots of exercise sentences for translating
> Pali to English and also English to Pali. It's
> limitation is that it does not use examples from the
> suttas in its exercises and it's presentation of
> material in the later chapters lacks a little depth.
>
> A big plus, of course, is that Yong Peng is
> systematically leading us through this, and the
> chapters you have missed are all on the web. And
> the
> book is available for free download , as has already
> been noted.
>
> 2. "The New Course in Reading Pali" by Gair and
> Karunatillake is an excellent book too, but I
> wouldn't
> recommend it first off for someone with
> no Pali experience at all. I have worked through
> it entirely and found that having completed the Pali
> Primer beforehand helped a lot. All the exercise
> material is directly taken from the suttas, which is
> a
> very good feature. My own answers for the exercises
> have been posted to the list, and are maintained on
> Yong Peng's web-site.
>
> 3. "Introduction to Pali" by A. K. Warder covers
> all
> the basics in a very thorough way. The exercise
> material is also right from the canon, and very
> useful
> in that respect. As with the Gair, I am sending my
> answers to this list for people to follow along as
> they wish - and provide feedback and suggestions for
> improvement.
>
> All these books are easy to find from online
> bookstores - pariyatti.com is an excellent resource
> in
> the US for Theravadan Buddhist material.
>
> May you all be well, and may all of our Pali
> endeavours thrive!
>
> John
>