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Colloquial Albanian: The Complete Course for Beginners
Colloquial The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Albanian as it is written and spoken today. Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Albanian in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Colloquial Albanian is exceptional; each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key, a grammar summary, bilingual glossaries and English translations of dialogues can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary lists throughout. Key features A clear, user-friendly format designed to help learners progressively build up their speaking, listening, reading and writing skills Jargon-free, succinct and clearly structured explanations of grammar An extensive range of focused and dynamic supportive exercises Realistic and entertaining dialogues covering a broad variety of narrative situations Helpful cultural points explaining the customs and features of life in Albania An overview of the sounds and alphabet of Albanian Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Albanian is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Albanian. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.
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352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 17, 2025
This is probably the best single introductory Albanian learning grammar out there! It is thorough without being overwhelming. For example, it introduces that Albanian uses a case system for nouns early on, and expands on what these cases are in the rest of the book. Albanian is also a morphologically heavy language, and this grammar actually teaches all the major tenses and modalities. It is also smart by introducing forms that are based on the same morphological patterns together (e.g. the subjunctive and future). While not being morphologically exhaustive, it gives sufficient patterns that the learner can recognize when a form isn’t following the main verbal pattern. I do find it odd that the middle-passive voice (or passive-reflexive voice) is called simply a different class of verbal conjugation instead of a different grammatical voice. That being said, the morphology is explained well.
The exercises in this grammar, especially in the accompanying online audio, were also very helpful. These not only worked on listening practice, but speaking practice as well. These sort of exercises build linguistic understanding better than just reciting a dialogue. It is well worth the time to do all the online listening and speaking practice. It also does not always provide a translation for dialogues and reading exercises, but this shows how much one can understand with what has already been taught and a few vocabulary helps. This is definitely my recommendation for anyone interested in learning the foundations of Albanian.
The exercises in this grammar, especially in the accompanying online audio, were also very helpful. These not only worked on listening practice, but speaking practice as well. These sort of exercises build linguistic understanding better than just reciting a dialogue. It is well worth the time to do all the online listening and speaking practice. It also does not always provide a translation for dialogues and reading exercises, but this shows how much one can understand with what has already been taught and a few vocabulary helps. This is definitely my recommendation for anyone interested in learning the foundations of Albanian.
October 10, 2025
This is the best Albanian grammar I have found and would recommend to anyone wanting to learn Albanian. It has exceptional speaking and listening exercises though online files that really develop as the book goes on. This book explains complex grammar topics as thoroughly as one could ask for a beginner’s book. It covers topics in a reasonable order (which is not always the case with beginner books). It gives lots of opportunities to practice grammar topics and has appendices to reference in the back. The one caveat from my praise- they classify the passive/reflexive verbs as a different class which is odd but enough of a distinction I think. The vocabulary given throughout the book is useful, current (not older dialect/words), and on topic to the chapter themes. I spent a long time working through it and now will be going back through a second time (scaffolding!) to work through the speaking exercises again.
October 28, 2021
For a long time, the Albanian entry in Routledge’s Colloquial series of self-teaching textbooks was based on the Albanian language as used in Kosovo. After all, when Isa Zymberi wrote that version in the late 1980s, Albania was still a Communist hermit state with closed borders, and foreigners learning Albanian could only travel to the open and welcoming country of Yugoslavia next door. But with the opening up of Albania, this approach seemed to no longer suit those wanting to learn standard Albanian as spoken in Albania itself. Unfortunately, when Routledge commissioned this new version of Colloquial Albanian from Linda Mëniku and Héctor Campos, the result was inferior to the first version. In fact, book-buyers may find it a ripoff.
One obvious problem is the amount of filler in this book. The exercises, which aren’t particular rigorous and useful, come with the first question already filled in. Then, in the key at the back of the book, the authors repeat all sentences in full instead of just giving the words the student was tasked to fill in. Imagine if all this wasted space was given over to more learning material instead. The authors provide lengthy notes in English on Albanian culture, but readers can get that kind of information from travel guides, and if the authors wanted to offer it here, they at least could have written it in Albanian so that the student gets more reading and translation practice.
Grammatically the Mëniku & Campos Colloquial Albanian stops well short of the first edition. After finishing the Zymberi edition, the student is already at about a B1 level as far as morphology and syntax is concerned, and already capable of reading real Albanian literature – indeed, Zymberi’s book ends with several long reading selections. Mëniku & Campos simply offer less detail on the language.
Finally, the editing of the book feels sloppy. There are a number of errors in the key to the exercises, and the authors – neither of whom is a native English speaker – make some English mistakes. One would think that a respectable publisher would have cleared these issues up before putting this book on the market.
The only strong point of the Mëniku & Campos is that its chapters are based around everyday situations and dialogues: going to the doctor, visiting the bank, etc. This represents quite a difference from the old Zymberi version of Colloquial Albanian, which was based mainly on reading texts. It also represents the flood of Italian loanwords into Albanian as spoken in Albania, which have not made it to Kosovo. Still, Mëniku & Campos’s book is so poor a learning tool that students would still be better off learning Albanian through Zymberi’s book, and only then quickly reading through this edition to get some useful vocabulary for everyday situations.
One obvious problem is the amount of filler in this book. The exercises, which aren’t particular rigorous and useful, come with the first question already filled in. Then, in the key at the back of the book, the authors repeat all sentences in full instead of just giving the words the student was tasked to fill in. Imagine if all this wasted space was given over to more learning material instead. The authors provide lengthy notes in English on Albanian culture, but readers can get that kind of information from travel guides, and if the authors wanted to offer it here, they at least could have written it in Albanian so that the student gets more reading and translation practice.
Grammatically the Mëniku & Campos Colloquial Albanian stops well short of the first edition. After finishing the Zymberi edition, the student is already at about a B1 level as far as morphology and syntax is concerned, and already capable of reading real Albanian literature – indeed, Zymberi’s book ends with several long reading selections. Mëniku & Campos simply offer less detail on the language.
Finally, the editing of the book feels sloppy. There are a number of errors in the key to the exercises, and the authors – neither of whom is a native English speaker – make some English mistakes. One would think that a respectable publisher would have cleared these issues up before putting this book on the market.
The only strong point of the Mëniku & Campos is that its chapters are based around everyday situations and dialogues: going to the doctor, visiting the bank, etc. This represents quite a difference from the old Zymberi version of Colloquial Albanian, which was based mainly on reading texts. It also represents the flood of Italian loanwords into Albanian as spoken in Albania, which have not made it to Kosovo. Still, Mëniku & Campos’s book is so poor a learning tool that students would still be better off learning Albanian through Zymberi’s book, and only then quickly reading through this edition to get some useful vocabulary for everyday situations.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews