Customer Reviews

Colloquial Albanian (Colloquial Series)

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

 

 

Colloquial Albanian is a useful, but flawed, introduction to Albanian. The book is fairly clearly explained and the lessons are graded quite effectively. Nevertheless, there are some flaws. Some words and expressions in the book are used regionally and sound quite strange when coming from a foreigner. I actually had people laugh at me when I used "tash" (which means "now", but is used primarily in Kosovo) instead of "tani" in Tirana, Albania's capital. A friend had a similar experience when she tried to say "you're welcome" to someone. The expression given near the beginning of the book, "me nder qofsh," is a beautiful expression. It is, however, quite dated and almost never heard anymore in response to "faleminderit" (thank you). It would not be a flaw to include such words and expressions in such a book if they were clearly marked.

Despite these problems, this is probably the best introduction to Albanian currently on the market.

Colloquial Albanian is an easy to follow, concise introduction to shqip (Albanian). Isa Zymberi gives clear instruction on the many verb stems and tenses/moods. A fairly broad vocab is covered, although I recommend anyone learning shqip by themselves should also buy an english-albanian dictionary. The accompyaning cassette is essential to develop pronuciation and listening skills. As said by other readers, the book is poorly bound and leafs will start to fall out withing the first few weeks of use. I suggest taking the book to a book-binder who will re-enforce it with string or glue. Overall, a very good book, one of the the best on the market.(There aren't to many on the market, though). I have some Albanian friends from Pristina and they also gave praise to the book, although some phrases brought a smirk to their faces. Would I buy It? -Sigurisht!

I am glad to have this book (and cassette) as part of my Abanian Reference collection. I appreciate the structure with which Isa Zymberi lays out the instruction. The ONLY qualm I have is with the physical binding of the book. After a few readings, a handful of pages have come undone from the binding.

Thanks, Giorgio Kolaj

I have been studying Albanian for over a year and used several texts. The Colloquial Albanian book and cassette set has been one of the most helpful. It follows a logical progression of language building and uses reading/listening passages with humor and variety. The audio cassette was especially helpful for building comprehesion/fluency. My only suggestion is that the speakers speak unusually slowly and often overenunciate on the cassette. It would be helpful to have speakers use a more natural speed for non-native speakers to imitate. However, it was a very good bargain for the price and I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to study this beautiful and complex language.

I wish this book were a better instructional guide to the language -- especially since practically few others exist. (Cesar Kurti has written one that I've gotten mixed reviews from friends on, however I have not really tried to use it, so I can't give it any fair comments)

1. The pronunciation guide is misleading to an American since it is based on British English pronunciation.

2. The audio cassette (I have anyway) seems muffled and lacks real teaching. Nevertheless, it is better than nothing since it allows you to hear the language spoken.

3. Many phrases taught are described as old fashioned by my Albanian friends, or from a less popular dialect.

4. The book assumes the reader is familiar with linguistic terminology and spares you simple descriptions of the differences between various cases.

5. Terms and reading (on the cassette) are from Kosovo. The standard, unified dialect from the capital is different.

These are just a few of the deficiencies I've found in this book. Be prepared and determined if you use this book, especially since few alternatives exist yet.

The book is designed as a teaching/learning tool, and as such one would expect the pages to remain in the book. However we now have all of chapters 1 and 2 as loose leaf, and I expect chapter three to begin falling out. We have other paperbacks that are MUCH more heavily used that do not fall apart. I also highly recommend getting the accompying tape.

I don't know the first thing about Albanian, but I was hoping to learn more about the language in order to communicate with a student I'll be tutoring from Kosovo. So I picked this book up from my library - although it's apparently a 2002 edition with a different cover and 359 pages (I don't know this makes the content significantly different from the other versions).

I've picked up the 'Colloquial' books before, for other languages in which I have either a basic or intermediate understanding, and have always been disappointed. I think to myself, "If I didn't already have a background in the language, I would never be able to learn from this book." The only one I found a bit fruitful was the book on Estonian - it had several grammar rules that my Teach Yourself book didn't cover.

Anyway, this is not about the other books - this Albanian one was no real help at all. Firstly, they failed to think anyone would be using the book without the tapes. The pronounciation guide says things like, "each of the vowels can either be short or long", "when ė... is pronounced in the final position (meaning, sometimes it's NOT pronounced)", and then shows where the stress falls on a few words. Useful, except I have no idea when these rules apply throughout the book. There are no accents to show stress, and there are no notes to show when a vowel is long or short, or when ė is not vocalized. So already, I have a slim chance of pronouncing anything correctly.

The book lacks thorough explanation on *anything* - it presents a few lines of dialogue, throws in a vocab list, and then leaves you to figure out how grammar should work, like putting together pieces of a puzzle. When it does decide to give you a chart of how a verb works (or so on), it often relies heavily on the vocab lists - so you, again, can figure out what the chart really means. For example, when I'm learning the verb "to be", why not just put the translations next to the pronoun + verb, instead of making me scour the vocab lists for each part?

There are many little grammar points that I'm sure are glazed over, as well. For one thing, the book states that "ti" is the singular way to say "you", while "ju" is the plural... except it fails to note that "ti" is the familiar, and "ju" is formal. Things like this are important cultural points that shouldn't be overlooked! I wouldn't want to make the mistake of calling a strange adult "ti", which would likely be rude. As the book continues, it drops more incomplete information on the reader, like, "Nouns are either masculine or feminine in Albanian." Okay... so could you tell me how to identify which are masculine and which are feminine?

The only use I can possibly see for this book is if someone already has a background in Albanian, and needs a refresher course. But I would NOT recommend this book if you're a beginner to the language. It's too bad there's such a slim selection for Albanian; as for me, I'll be scouring the internet for useful sites rather than relying on this book.

I am albanian, This book is NOT the proper albanian to learn. This was written in Kosovo dialect, which is only used in Kosovo Yugoslavia. An Albanian from Albania or Montenegro will not fully understand you and most likely make fun of you. Its like a foriegner learning english from a Mexican Immigrant. Find another book.

This is a pretty good book overall. However, it suffers from one major problem: very few people speak Albanian, especially outside the Balkans. The authors might have produced a more useful and acclaimed opus if they had written a book on "Colloquial German" or "Everyday Arabic". If, on the other hand, you consider its obscurity a boon, I suggest Nenets: agonizingly difficult and few native speakers (most of whom spend their time in Siberia herding reindeer).