Albanian......, October 1, 2002

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.

Very helpful, faleminderit!, November 26, 2001

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.

Best on the market (shume mire!), August 16, 2000

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!

Overall good book, but bad binding, March 7, 2000

The book is designed as a teaching/learning tool, and as such one would expect the pages to remain in the book. However we now have all of chapters 1 and 2 as loose leaf, and I expect chapter three to begin falling out. We have other paperbacks that are MUCH more heavily used that do not fall apart. I also highly recommend getting the accompying tape.

OK overall, October 13, 1999
Reviewer: A reader
This is a pretty good book overall. However, it suffers from one major problem: very few people speak Albanian, especially outside the Balkans. The authors might have produced a more useful and acclaimed opus if they had written a book on "Colloquial German" or "Everyday Arabic". If, on the other hand, you consider its obscurity a boon, I suggest Nenets: agonizingly difficult and few native speakers (most of whom spend their time in Siberia herding reindeer).

Useful, but flawed, introduction to the Albanian language, October 21, 1998
Reviewer: A reader
Colloquial Albanian is a useful, but flawed, introduction to Albanian. The book is fairly clearly explained and the lessons are graded quite effectively. Nevertheless, there are some flaws. Some words and expressions in the book are used regionally and sound quite strange when coming from a foreigner. I actually had people laugh at me when I used "tash" (which means "now", but is used primarily in Kosovo) instead of "tani" in Tirana, Albania's capital. A friend had a similar experience when she tried to say "you're welcome" to someone. The expression given near the beginning of the book, "me nder qofsh," is a beautiful expression. It is, however, quite dated and almost never heard anymore in response to "faleminderit" (thank you). It would not be a flaw to include such words and expressions in such a book if they were clearly marked.

Despite these problems, this is probably the best introduction to Albanian currently on the market.