Colloquial Albanian (Colloquial Series (Book Only))

Rating:
Summary: Best on the market (shume mire!)
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Albanian......
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Very helpful, faleminderit!
Review: 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.