Hi June,

There's always a bit of a back and forth motion at the beginning
between grammar and dictionary work. Some forms are hard to find
because they are declined or inflected forms of the base word. You
need to be able to guess the citation form (the form used in the
dictionary) to be able to find it. This varies from dictionary to
dictionary. Luckily, you'll find that it gets easier with time.

A trick that I recommend is to read texts to which there are reliable
translations, and if you get stuck, consult the translation for help.
You want to read easy texts, with a lot of help, to cover a lot of
ground and get used to seeing the various forms 'in action'.

>
>could someone please give me some hints on how i should look the
>following words up?
>
>yaani

This one won't show up in the dictionary. To figure it out you need
to recognize that it's a declined form of the pronoun ya.m (or yad,
according to some) in the neuter plural. It means 'which' and is
similar to taani and kaani.

>athopi

this is two words written together

atho api > atho 'pi > athopi

So you can look up atho and api separately. Stray 'pi' is something
you'll commonly see... it's almost always an extra api.

>nisaametha

I'd look under nisaameti or nissaamayati. The -tha ending is just
another person/number.

Nisaameti in the PED gives: to attend to, listen to, observe, be
careful of, mind

>pajaaya

Not 100% sure yet and unfortunately I'm in a hurry and have to run.
Hope someone else can explain this last one. My first guess was an
absolutive from pajaayati... but not sure.

In any case, feel free to keep posting and asking. I don't think
people consider it a burden. These questions are exactly what the
group is for... right guys??? :-)

Hope this helps,

/Rett