I have recently purchased the latest edition of this book from the established Colloquial series, and I must say it is one of the best out there for learning Albanian, which was a nice surprise for me.
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| Colloquial Albanian -the latest edition. |
I found it easy to digest the material with simple texts, exercises, and grammar examples in the new edition, unlike the older version, which seems kind of bulky in terms of material. The older version has a lot more material, which is not necessarily a good thing.
Regarding the older version, it was much harder for me to assimilate the material, while I found the new edition much clearer and simpler, with nice examples.
Furthermore, the older edition is full of Kosovan elements of the dialect as spoken in Kosovo, a fact which is not mentioned in the book at all.
Most people are interested in learning the official Albanian language as it is spoken in Albania, which is based on the Tosk dialect, unlike the Kosovan dialect, which is based on the Gheg dialect.
Tosk and Gheg are the two major dialects of the Albanian language.
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| The previous edition is full of Kosovan dialect elements. |
This has been corrected in the new book. The language used in the new edition is, indeed, the official Albanian language as spoken in Albania.
Another thing that I found very useful in the latest edition is that it often provides variants of words or phrases commonly used in Albanian speech. This offers valuable insight into how native speakers truly communicate.
And my favorite part: the dialogue exercises. The dialogue exercises actually helped me to start speaking a bit in Albanian and not remain tongue-tied, just passively learning the material. It's hard to find such exercises in any other Albanian learning course.
Free Audio ,high speed
Keep in mind, though, that the entire audio of the book is freely available on the official Colloquial site. I don't see why someone should buy the audio CDs.
Also, certain dialogues are spoken at an excessively rapid pace, rendering them completely unhelpful for beginners. The editors at Routledge Colloquial seem to have failed to understand that audio materials for language learners should be spoken at a slower rate than typical speech.
Errors and misprints.
Similar to many other books in the Colloquial language series, this particular book contains numerous mistakes and printing errors, particularly in the exercise solutions found towards the end of the book.
Considering the high cost of these books, we should expect more accurate proofreading.
Complicated grammar.
Additionally, some of the grammatical explanations, while aiming to be clear, become unnecessarily long, convoluted, and overly complicated.
Consequently, comprehending certain grammatical concepts becomes quite challenging.
Furthermore, they have not yet realized that it is unacceptable to release books filled with mistakes.
Overall,this book is definitely a must-have for learners of Albanian, standing out among all other Albanian courses available on the market up to now.