The fastest way to learn Albanian is to spend most of your study time on Albanian you can mostly understand. That kind of Albanian is called comprehensible input. What you read and listen to should change as you improve, so the plan below shows what to do at each level and how to split an hour of study.
What to Do at Each Level
Find the level that sounds like you. Its bar shows how to spend an hour of study.
- Level 1
I'm just starting out or know only a few words.
Read and listen 35 min. Review 15 min. Speak 10 min.
Read free picture books, and watch fairy tales told with cartoons, so the pictures carry the meaning. Read or watch each story twice, and say a few lines out loud.
- Level 2
I can handle simple exchanges.
- Level 3
I follow conversations on familiar topics.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 5 min. Speak 15 min.
Pick reading and listening lessons at your level on GLOSS, and read Në 3 Minuta, a free weekly email that explains one news story from Kosovo simply. Talk about what you read for longer.
- Level 4
I understand most content but miss some nuance.
- Level 5
I read complex topics but rare words slow me down.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Watch the news and shows on RTSH, Albania's public broadcaster, without subtitles. Listen to people from Kosovo and northern Albania too, so the Gheg dialect starts to sound familiar.
- Level 6
I read at near-native level.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read Albanian novels and newspapers, and talk about them, for their own sake. Audiobooks.al has Albanian novels you can listen to, free with an account.
Move up a level when your lessons start to feel easy, and move back down if you lose the thread by the third line.
How Long Does It Take to Learn Albanian?
Albanian takes 1,012 class hours, or about 44 weeks of full-time study, to reach professional fluency, according to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. That puts Albanian in the third of its four groups for English speakers, with Greek, Russian and Turkish.
| Language | FSI group | Full-time weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Category I | 30 |
| German | Category II | 36 |
| Albanian, Greek | Category III | 44 |
| Japanese | Category IV | 88 |
Arizona State University (ASU) teaches first-year Albanian at its Critical Languages Institute in 140 contact hours, and second-year Albanian in 160 hours of classroom instruction, so its first two years take 300 hours. Here is how long those take at different amounts of study a week:
| Study per week | ASU first year (140 hours) | ASU first two years (300 hours) | FSI professional fluency (1,012 hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3½ hours | About 9 months | About 20 months | About 5½ years |
| 7 hours | About 4½ months | About 10 months | About 2¾ years |
| 14 hours | About 10 weeks | About 5 months | About 17 months |
| 28 hours | About 5 weeks | About 2½ months | About 8 months |
These are class hours, so treat them as a rough guide. Time you spend understanding Albanian on your own counts too.
What Slows Learners Down
- Guessing the SoundsAlbanian has 36 letters, and nine of them are pairs such as sh, xh and gj that each make one sound. Listen while you read, so you learn each word with its real sound.
- Case Tables AloneAlbanian adds “the” to the end of a noun, so mal is “mountain” and mali is “the mountain,” and the ending changes again with each case. A table of endings is hard to use until you have read each form in many sentences.
- Content Far Too HardAn Albanian film where you know one word in five teaches you very little.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Albanian app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Albanian, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Our Albanian app comparison covers courses, tutors and speaking apps too.
Can I learn Albanian in three months?
You can reach about the end of a first-year college course. At 14 hours a week, three months is about 180 hours, which is more than ASU's 140-hour first-year Albanian course. The school says students who finish it can communicate in day-to-day situations.
How much should I study Albanian each week?
Aim for three to five hours a week of Albanian you understand, in sessions of at least 15 to 30 minutes. A longer session lets you get lost in a story, which teaches more than five minutes a day, and steady time each week matters more than a daily streak. Our post on deep sessions over daily streaks explains why.
Is Albanian hard for English speakers?
Yes, by the Foreign Service Institute's measure: Albanian is in its third group of four, so it takes longer than Spanish or German and half as long as Japanese. Albanian is the only living language in its own branch of the Indo-European family, which also includes English, so it has no close relative you might already know. Most of the time goes into the words and the noun endings, which you pick up fastest from Albanian you understand.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
Sources
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Language Training (FSI language categories)
- Arizona State University, Melikian Center, Critical Languages Institute: Albanian (first-year Albanian, 140 contact hours; second-year Albanian, 160 hours of classroom instruction)
- Wikipedia: Albanian alphabet (36 letters, nine of them digraphs)
- Wikipedia: Albanian language (the definite article after the noun; Tosk and Gheg; the only surviving language of its branch)
