Spoken Albanian [Audiobook] [Paperback]

Leonard Newmark (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0879500085 | ISBN-13: 978-0879500085 | Publication Date: 1997 | Edition: Bk&Cassett

Official Language of People's Republic of Albania

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Leonard Newmark is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of California at San Diego. He received his Ph.D at Indiana University.

His earlier research aimed at constructing a theory of foreign language acquisition with direct application to foreign language pedagogy. He has returned in recent years to a set of projects centered specifically on the Albanian language. Having finished a large Albanian-English dictionary to supplement the large descriptive grammar of standard Albanian I did earlier, he has now produced new textbook for learning colloquial Albanian. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 511 pages
• Publisher: Spoken Language Services; Bk&Cassett edition (1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879500085
• ISBN-13: 978-0879500085
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,315,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful text for spoken Albanian, February 26, 2010

By 

Harold Goodman (Silver Spring, Maryland 20910) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spoken Albanian (Paperback)

Speak Mandarin Chinese For Beginners The Michel Thomas Method (8-CD Beginner's Program) (Michel Thomas Series)
Michel Thomas Method Speak Mandarin Chinese Advanced (Michel Thomas Series)Michel Thomas Method: Mandarin Chinese Vocabulary Course (Michel Thomas Series)

I am the author of the Michel Thomas series for Spoken Mandarin Chinese.

Leonard Newmark is probably the greatest American expert in Albanian. He is a professor at the University of California, San Diego, where he has taught for many years. If you do a search you will find many titles on Albanian written by him over the years. Not all of them are listed on Amazon and some, like his legendary reference text, Standard Albanian, are out of print ( but available via a used book search).

Newmark in connection with an Albanian author wrote this book many years ago. It was totally revised in 1997. The revision is very complete and covers the most current form of the spoken language in post-communist Albania.

I have written on several resources for studying Albanian.

This text would be my preferred place to start if you wish to concentrate on standard spoken Albanian.

With the exception of Let's learn Albanian, I would not recommend any of the other textbooks.

I love this book for several reasons.

It is written by an American linguist who really understands the special problems of English-speaking learners. None of the other books I have seen have such a deep understanding of our needs compared to this one.

I have spent a lot of money on textbooks to learn Albanian. If I had to do it all over again, I would have purchased this text to start with.

The format is very basic. You are given a conversation. Each word and phrase is broken down for the reader along with accents for pronunciation which many texts lack.

Following this is one line from the conversation along with an excellent translation.

Then there is a very user-friendly explanation of the grammar that you need to know for the selection.

The book is over 500 pages and will provide a wonderful foundation for your learning. You could easily carry on a conversation with what you get in this book.

Now the downside.

There are six audio cassettes which accompany the text if you pay $90.

I have them and find the sound quality disappointing.

It seems as if they were recorded long ago. They really could benefit from being cleaned up so that they are clearer.

For the tapes you will pay $75.

If you go to another page on Amazon ( same title and author) you have the option to buy the book alone for $15 which is a great price for what you will get.

My suggestion is to get the book alone. If you like it and really want the tapes be forewarned as above. You can buy them alone from the publisher ( Google them) without book for $75.

Enjoy!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best Albanian method available, March 29, 2007

By 

H. Abadzi "habadzi" (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spoken Albanian (Paperback)

This book has clear explanations of grammar, a good vocabulary, and comes with 6 tapes. It has been around for many years and is a bit hard to find. It is rather expensive, $90. But the alternative is the Isa Zymberi book, that uses the Kosovo dialect that is not standard. (Cezar Kurti's book has very little audio that follows the text and tons of errors.)

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Spoken Albanian, January 5, 2009

By 

L. Leiev "Iliev" (South Korea) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spoken Albanian (Paperback)

Maybe this book is not the worst, but it is far from the best, too.
A weak point is that the lessons at the end of each unit have no parallel English texts, unlike the phrases at the beginning. Moreover, not all units are recorder on the tapes. And what is most awful, the quality of some tapes is disgusting. I ordered this item, then replaced it, but the second time it was even worse - absolutely nothing was heard from the first tape. That is why I returned the textbook for the second time.
Maybe COLLOQUIAL ALBANIAN represents the Kosovo dialect, but it is better, in this case. I also would recommend the short dialogues from 101 Languages of the World. There is also PILMSEUR ALBANIAN, which I do not know, and only hope it is good.
Why did Amazon send me this 2 times, without checking the quality of the tapes? I am very disappointed.