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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Archimedes Tetraglot Newbie Belgium Joined 5575 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Albanian, Modern Hebrew, Italian | Message 1 of 6 20 August 2009 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can anyone help me to assess the difficulty for a German to learn Albanian? I just read the Albanian phrasebook on Wikitravel and it didn´t seem to be pronounced differently with some small exceptions. And by the way: Is it generally possible to be understood as a German after some self-practice in Albania?
Faleminderit (Thank you) for any assistance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6240 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes  14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 2 of 6 20 August 2009 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why worry about difficulty? It is only as difficult as you want it to be (see similar hypes about Russian or Japanese or any language people make out to be like that). Whether you will be understood depends on other things, not the perceived "difficulty" of the language you are studying.
I see you are a native speaker of German; I have found a really nice manual for Albanian here; it's called "Albanisch Intensiv". The author is Pandeli Pani. It comes with an MP3 CD and looks quite decent and extensive. It cost me about € 50. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6227 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 6 20 August 2009 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||
Bravo on attempting to learn Albanian! As far as the difficulty for a German speaker, I think you need to assess how much Albanian you need to know and for what purpose. If you are planning to spend a week or two in Albania and want to pick up a few phrases it shouldn't be too tough for you. If you are planning on becoming fluent that's a different story all together! I am currently attempting to learn Albanian as a native English speaker. So far the greatest difficulties for me have been 1) Tough pronunciation of some letter combinations gy, dh, xh and q seem to be the toughest.. 2) Very few English/Albanian cognates. 3) Remembering to tack the definite articles on the ends of nouns. 4) The multitudes of verb forms. That being said, the Albanians that I have butchered the language with have been enormously supportive, impressed and tolerant of my efforts to speak their language! It seems not too many folks go out of their way to try and learn Albanian. As far as learning materials, check for the DLI Albanian Torrent on mininova. It was seeded as of the other day. You can also try the DLI website..there is downloadable product called Albanian Familiarization. Just go to http://www.dliflc.edu/index.html, in the Products column select Field Support Modules, when the page loads, select 1 Choose a Country, and then select Albania. On the next page, next to the map, click on Albanian Familiarization. Then you will have a selection of language materials to download. It is in the Kosovar dialect. There is also a website by Cezar Kurti called Learn Albanian. No audio, but all the Chapters from his book. Të gjithë të mirat (All the best)! Edited by liddytime on 20 August 2009 at 11:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6093 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 4 of 6 21 August 2009 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
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German will help you understand the concept of cases in Albanian. Also a good knowledge of German words of Latin and Greek origin will help you as they can often be found in Albanian too.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Archimedes Tetraglot Newbie Belgium Joined 5575 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Albanian, Modern Hebrew, Italian | Message 5 of 6 21 August 2009 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Finally I decided to learn Albanian!!! It´s exotic but still possible to learn with books and a bit practice.
@Gilgamesh:I worry about difficulty because once I tried to learn Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Arabic and Russian which ended in a disaster! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6227 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 6 21 August 2009 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Albanian is not easy. But I am finding it MUCH easier than Chinese and Arabic and I would say it is slightly easier than Russian. Go for the DLI course. It is very gradual in nature and when you have one Unit down , you move on to the next one! Paç fat! (good luck) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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