I'm on my third attempt through DeSilva's course now, before I
tackle the Gair book. I could use some basic advice.
My problem is with the initial pain of learning declensions. As
slow as I seem to go, I still do not seem to have the mind for
keeping track of them. Is it a matter of hard rote memorization,
practice, context? Might someone advise me of some sort of
strategy?
I'm having a kind of first in, first out problem. By the time I get
to the later cases, I've forgetten the earlier ones.
My second question concerns the type of exercises I am doing.
Bhikkhu Bodhi recommends only doing pali to english exercises in the
DeSilva Primer. His take is that translating in the other direction
isn't particularly useful as a skill. i.e. there are no real
practical uses for translating any kind of english texts into Pali.
However I wonder if it still isn't a useful exercise for getting
familiar with the language.
Do people find much value in translating from English into Pali?