Sumana wrote:

>
>Skip the "theory of derivation of the
>present tense stems". Skip "Vowel Gradation". Learn
>the "First Conjugation", the "Present Tense", and
>"Nominative Case"(subject of the sentence).

This is very good advice IMO. I remember on another list a fellow
referred to Warder as writing extremely 'opaque verbiage'. I
disagreed and suggested that Warder is very clear, precise and
concise, but that he puts advanced material too early in the book,
making it neither a graded primer, nor an organized reference work.
It's a bit of a hybrid of both: great for academic students studying
Pali full-time with a teacher, but difficult for people working on
their own. So when I first worked through it I also found myself
instinctively skipping about half of what he said in each chapter.
"Vowel Gradation" is important, for example, but a beginner can go
back and learn it later when s/he comes across problems that require
it for their solution. It's not a burden to learn an idea once you
see how it's useful.

The other thing about Warder is that he uses technical grammar terms
without providing a general introduction to them. If you don't know
them, you'll need to find their meanings elsewhere (like by asking
here).


best regards,

/Rett