>Dear Members:
>It has been suggested to me that I follow the following study outline, but
>since I've been out of school many many years, and the following outline
>appears to apply more to the study of a European type language it might not
>be the most appropriate route. Therefore I am asking if in your mind "it is
>or is not" a good basic approach to the study of the language of Pali.
>Please see as follows:
>Stage 1. First learn meaning and pronunciation of some Pali words (i.e. what
>they mean in English).
>Stage 2. Then learn some verbs.
>Stage 3. Next learn how to conjugate those verbs; so to be able to build
>simple sentences.

At this point you would also need to have learned some of the basic
case-endings for nouns. So a certain amount of 'Stage 5' would
already need to have taken place.

>Stage 4. Learn the Pali Alphabet

Pali doesn't have any unique alphabet, but can be written in any of
the major South Asian and South-East Asian scripts, as well as in the
Roman alphabet with diacritics. You'll need to have learned the
diacritics before being able to to Stage 1.

>Stage 5. Now at this stage start studying Pali Grammar.

I'd say that I agree with your assessment that this outline would
apply to learning a language like Spanish or French or even Swedish,
but it wouldn't work for German, much less for Russian, Greek or
Pali. You mentioned in your other post that you are waiting for some
books to arrive. Does that include any graded courses like
Gair/Karunatillake or Warder? If so, then the best basic approach is
just to follow the lessons in order, since they'll introduce the
various topics of grammar in bite-sized bits with example sentences.

You also asked:

>I'm using "Normyn" font, I guess this is ok for the time being for
>elementary studies?

Yes, you can get far with just that font.

>Why does a student need these other types of font, like what is being
>discussed by the group?

To be able to view (or prepare) webpages and documents that use those
fonts. Don't worry about it for now. When the need becomes acute,
then you'll know it's time to figure that stuff out.

best regards,

/Rett