Customer Reviews

Albanian

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My husband and I both found this to be an excellent course for a beginner in learning the Albanian language. It is a very practical, logical and straight forward approach to language study. Neither of us has ever attempted to learn a foreign language before but after going through this study guide we both feel reasonably comfortable with the basics of the language and are eager to learn more. Our only regret is that there is not a continuation of the series progressing to an intermediate, and then advanced level. For us as beginners, completing this course represented time and money well spent and turned what could have been a very dull and mundane undertaking into a fun and a very rewarding experience. We can actually carry on a conversation in Albanian now!

This is a very (pricey) purchase, comparable to less than what would be covered in less than half a semester of a language course. Unfortunately, it may be the only introduction to the Albanian language, available on audiocassettes. Albanian may be one of the hardest languages to pronounce, let alone learn. This reviewer was in Kosova/Kosovo, and found that the tips on the language, from his Albanian associates, in the United States, were far more useful than these audiocassettes. The booklet, included with the set, is largely useless. It only contains lists of words, without definitions, that are pronounced in the cassettes. If you have to speak Albanian, hire a tutor, and regularly interact with Albanians. If you are planning a brief visit to Kosova/Kosovo, many young Albanians speak English(unlike in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and a greater number of older Albanians speak German. English and German will almost certainly be all that you will need(the older generation also knows Serb; just ask permission first, because of sensitivities from the war). So, if you can afford these cassettes, and have the time to listen to them, buy them, since everything helps. If you are on a strict budget and schedule, however, this set may be a needless expense.

This course teaches Albanian at the very basic level and covers only a limited vocabulary for everyday communication. As such it is a solid, but too short and expensive introduction to the language. After completing the course you will be able to say hello and goodbye, introduce yourself, give basic information about yourself and your knowledge of Albanian, order a drink or a meal, ask about the price and count from 0 to 99. You still will not be able to participate in a more demanding communication. Motivated learner will find the course to be a better choise than a phrase book. The Pimsleur audio-method makes it possible for the beginner to study the ten half-an-hour lessons in a short period of time (one lesson per day or 10 days). The learned material is reinforced through constant and various repetition exercises. The cassettes are high quality and the speekers provide clear and good models for the pronunciation. Recommended as a starter course for Albanian.

Pimsleur came up with some memory principles that only now are becoming better researched (notably the stability of recall following various study intervals.) The Albanian and the other Pimsleur methods work very well with human memory. For those who need to learn Albanian it is very fortunate that the company produced even a short method for this rather little-used language.
It must be noted that Amazon and other sellers create a confusion. THERE IS NO ABRIDGED OR UNABRIDGED Albanian course. Whether you buy tapes, CDs or the SD removable media, you always get the same course: 5 hours. For the Pimsleur standards it's abridged, their courses are often 14 hours.
PRICE: All these media have widely differing prices. I bought mine used as cassettes for $21 (and they had never been used). The same course sells for $40-$115 under various formats. (Of course, cassettes can be digitized, and CDs can be copied for a backup.) The Pimsleur company told me that there is a blockage against making a backup copy of the SD-card, so people who want to make a backup copy cannot easily do it.