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Albanian and Italian Log...and French... | ||
Tags: Albanian | Dabbling | Wanderlust | Michel Thomas | Pimsleur | Beginner | Italian | Assimil | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| akprocks Senior Member United States Joined 5277 days ago 178 posts - 258 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 9 of 35 05 March 2011 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually you do have knowledge of a Germanic language. It's the one you're using to read my message. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| polyglossia Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5395 days ago 205 posts - 255 votes Speaks: French* | Message 10 of 35 05 March 2011 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Good point !!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5444 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 35 06 March 2011 at 6:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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mr_chinnery,
I couldn't be more excited for you -- you've picked one of the obscurestest languages to learn! Like one of the previous posters, I have had random interest in Albania since childhood as the country earned two pop-culture references: #1. On the hit TV show "Cheers" as Coach sings what I still consider to be Albania's unofficial national anthem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrz1q_zk-SU #2. During the first season of the obscure cartoon show "The Simpsons", with the foreign exchange student Adil Hoxha (codename: Sparrow). http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Adil_Hoxha Also, as you mentioned, probably one of the best looking flags around. Almost as cool as a pirate flag, but real pirates don't actually use pirate flags, and real pirates suck. But I digress... So one of the things that you've probably already found out is that materials for Albanian self-study are minimal and sometimes hard to find. I'm not familiar with the "Spoken Albanian" book that was mentioned before (is this the SLS Leonard Newmark book? -- I see it on Amazon, but have never seen/used it before). I would; however, recommend the following as you are just starting out: A. Get a copy of the Pimsleur Albanian course -- It's just a 5-disc, 10-lesson intro, but it'll give you a big headstart in the pronunciation -- your description that it sounds like Russian/Italian/Greek is dead on, but once you get some of the the sounds down that are trickier for English speakers, like 'y', 'll', and 'dh', you'll be set. If you learn nothing more than the greetings, pleasantries, and simple questions/statements on the Pimsleur course, as a visitor to Albania you'll instantly have set yourself above 99% of non-ethnic-Albanian visitors, and be the object of adoration and curiosity. B. I highly recommend "Colloquial Albanian" by Isa Zymberi (make sure you get the version with CDs). It's now about 20 years old, so a little dated, and it is a little slanted towards Pristina vocab/pronunciation, but it's a good book for self study and goes at a fair pace. Although it isn't a grammar book, it's my first stop whenever I have a grammar question: nine dog-eared pages at the end of chapter 6 alone make this book worth the cost. Plus, the book has a lot of humor woven into the dialogues. C. In addition to the Zymberi text, there is a two-volume set that was published in Albania in the late 70's or early 80's, whose name escapes me right now, but they were developed during the communist days to teach the language to foreigners and/or Albanian diaspora... I'll dig this up to see what it's called... this was probably the most beneficial textbook series for learning the language... but I think it's all in Albanian and meant for use with an instructor/tutor, but it could be useful to start about halfway through Colloquial Albanian (or right away if you can get a tutor). You're exactly right that Albania has great potential - beautiful country, beautiful people, and still very affordable. Also, great choice learning Italian along with Albanian, I think every restaurant in the country has menus in Albanian, Italian, (and often English). Pune te mbare! -Slacker ============================== TAC '11 - Slacker's Rosetta Stone Game Current: Arabic-1.2.0 Done: Italian-1, Italian-2 Total Hours: 42 ============================== 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5748 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 12 of 35 07 March 2011 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My Albanian learning has been rather hampered the last few days by my laptop stopping working, so I can't do anything involving audio! I don't know how long it'll be out of action but I'm frustrated to say the least :(
So, instead, I'm having to make do with concentrating on the written and grammatical aspects in 'Spoken Albanian'. Occasionally it strikes me I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I'm making steady progress with my Italian so that keeps me motivated. I'm still working on the vocab in unit 1, which basically covers simple things like 'Hi', 'How are you', etc. Thanks for the tips Slacker, I've looked into the Colloquial Albanian, and I will probably invest in it in future, but I've heard it's got a few mistakes in, and between that and 'Spoken..', 'Spoken...' is better. If you remember the name of that other text book, I'd be most grateful! It is indeed the Newmark one you mentioned, I bought it second hand without tapes, and didn't realise it was supposed to come with audio so I've hamstrung myself a little bit. You're advice on Pimsleur is sound, and I'm going to order it at the end of the month. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7135 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 13 of 35 07 March 2011 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the series of books referred to above that was published in Albania was the three-volume series "Gjuha Shqipe". To the best of my knowledge it had no audio. It was all in Albanian but the vocabulary listing in the back of each volume was Albanian-French-English.
One other resource you just might want to take a look at is the massive old DLI Albanian course, which had lots of audio but which I think was in a dialect that differs from the current standard. You can find it to download (PDFs and MP3s) at: http://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20cours es/Albanian/ 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 14 of 35 08 March 2011 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Good on you, mr chinnery! I, myself, have been tempted to learn an atypical language and I'm looking forward to following your progress with this somewhat obscure and fascinating language and culture.
Back in the day, as you know, before communism in Europe fell, Albania was the only European communist country allied with China and before Bosnia became independent, Albania was the only majority muslim country in Europe. Just a few of the reasons why this country is such a unique part of Europe. The Albanians I have met over the years have been very friendly and warm. I wish you best of luck as you learn Albanian. Edited by iguanamon on 08 March 2011 at 5:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5444 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 35 10 March 2011 at 3:29am | IP Logged | |||||
Daristani, Thanks man! You saved me from digging through many boxes and piles of paper!... You are exactly right though, it had an English-Shqip-French glossary. I don't remember there being 3 books, but I may have just used 1 and 2. I'd love to get an actual hard-copy of these, but I can't seem to find them anywhere on the interweb. As for the DLI courses, you are right, they are heavy on the Gheg dialect, and I think they're from like the 50's... I worked through about 20 or 30 lessons; good as a supplement, but I wouldn't recommend it as the only thing to use if you want to speak modern-sounding Tiranese. I dug up a couple other books that I picked up in Albania, but haven't really used: "Learn Albanian - Mesoni Shqip: An Introduction to Albanian Grammar, Second Edition" by Cezar Kurti, ISBN 1-881901-09-2. I maybe read like the first two chapters of this one, so I can't give a real review. "Let's Learn Albanian: A Comprehensive Albanian Language Course." (with CD) by Batjar Bega. I reluctantly bought this paperback book (for about 4,000 lek... which was about $50 at the time!) because I met the author and he's an all-around awesome dude. I've just started working through the first couple chapters of the book, and I can say that it isn't for beginners or for self-study, but would probably be good if you already know the language. I'll work through it a bit and let you know. -Slacker 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5748 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 16 of 35 10 March 2011 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Përshëndetje të gjithë! Good stuff, I'm going to track down that grammar book, and await the review of the latter book with bated breath Slacker! I have my laptop in some semblance of working order now, so I'm back listening to book2. Ive been trying to find some really simple nursery rhymes, or fairy tales in Albania, but haven't had any luck so far. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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