Japan Festival, Amstelveen – June 6th and 7th, 2009

Readers in the Netherlands may be interested to know that there will be a Japan Festival in Amstelveen next weekend. The festival will be held on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th June, 2009, at the Stadshart Amstelveen shopping centre and will include a range of activities for the whole family to enjoy, including taiko drum performances, martial arts displays, a Nintendo Wii tournament, a karaoke contest and an attempt to break the world records for the longest sushi bar and sushi roll. Other activities and workshops will be held in Amstelveen’s Stadsplein. Anyone who wants to learn the art of origami or how to play Go will have the chance to do so next weekend. There will also be a tea ceremony at the Cobra Museum.

More information can be found at the Stadshart Amstelveen’s website (only available in Dutch).

Linear B and Other Ancient Scripts

I’ve been doing a bit of background reading on Linear B and other early writing systems for an essay for my Later Prehistory course. Long-time readers will probably have heard me mention that I’m taking a series of introductory archaeology courses offered by the University of Leicester. The current course, Later Prehistory, tackles a rather wide range of cultures, including the Minoans, the Bronze age cultures of Europe, the early urban civilisations of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and China, and the early states of the Americas (e.g. Olmecs, Maya).

Although I am only 1 week into this 12-week course, I have already begun to do some background reading and research for my essay. Students are given a small selection of essay titles to choose from and I’ve decided to choose the title which I felt would be an excellent way for me to combine my love for languages with my passion for archaeology : How did early writing systems differ in their material form and use within society? Discuss in relation to at least three writing systems. I haven’t made any firm decisions on the writing systems I’m choosing to focus on for this essay but Linear B is one of them. Other candidates include the oracle bone script of Shang Dynasty China, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform.

I’m currently reading through John Chadwick’s Linear B and Related Scripts to get a better idea of how the Linear B script was used in Minoan society. One thing that becomes clear very early on in the book is that Linear B was used almost exclusively for administrative purposes. There is no evidence as yet to suggest that the script was ever used for historical or “recreational” purposes, which sets it apart from other ancient languages such as cuneiform and Ancient Greek, which were used for writing down their myths and were used for diplomatic affairs. The decipherment  of Linear B was quite a breakthrough in the understanding of the rise (and fall) of Minoan civilization. I found a copy of Andrew Robinson’s biography of Michael Ventris, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, in the Amsterdam Public Library (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam), which I will read as soon as I have finished reading Chadwick’s book. Once I have finished reading both of those books, I will move on to Steven Roger Fischer’s A History of Writing and Lesley Adkin’s book Empires of the Plain. Needless to say, I’m going to be quite busy for the next few weeks!

A to Z Challenge Update – I’m still working through Alan R. King’s The Basque Language. I’m trying to memorise some of the dialogues he’s used in the book using the sentence method and am trying to dissect each sentence in order to consolidate everything I’ve learnt so far. It’s good to see that I can finally understand basic sentences and am getting to grips with the case endings. If only the verbs were as straightforward…

The A to Z Challenge – Basque – Part 1

I’ve been studying Basque for about a week now so I thought it was time for a quick update of my progress. I’ve been using a combination of resources, including the Google books version of Colloquial Basque and the online course Egun On (a course created by the Universidad de Deusto and El Correo). I’ve made a list of basic phrases and sentences in my notebook and have began tackling Basque grammar, which is logical but frightening. Conjugating verbs and making sense of paradigm tables is a nightmare…

I haven’t made any real effort at writing anything in Basque yet, though I think I can manage some (very) basic sentences.

Kaixo, ni Kelly naiz, 28 urte dauzkat eta Holandan bizi naiz. Ni euskara ikasten ari naiz.

Translation : Hi, I’m Kelly, I’m 28 years old and I live in Holland. I’m learning Basque.

Very simple sentences…and I have to admit I’m still not sure how to string together 3 separate statements. I tried to do it in the first sentence above but it’s probably wrong.

Another area I have put a lot of effort and time into is vocabulary building. Basque is a language isolate so apart from the odd loanword, a lot of the vocabulary is very different to that of any other language I have studied. Yesterday, I read about the suffix -zale, which shows that a person is fond of a particular activity or topic. For example, bakezale means “pacifist” (bake is the Basque word for “peace”) and gozozale means someone with a sweet tooth (gozo means “sweet”). I plan to make a list of the affixes that can be useful for word building so I will be using this dictionary to help me with that particular task. I’ve noticed that this dictionary also includes some example sentences in the definition fields so I might try using Khazumoto’s sentence method to get a better feel for Basque vocabulary and grammar.

I’m putting together a few documents with basic grammar tips and Basque cultural tidbits, which I’m using to keep track of some of the things I learn during the course of the next month and will make available for public viewing when I move on to Language C.

News Round-up – 24th May

Apologies for not posting any language news last Sunday but I was too busy with other tasks and visiting a friend who had just had a baby. Here’s a selection of this week’s language news.

• Grad Student Helps Save Endangered Language (Newswise)
• In Defence of English (American Chronicle)
• In the Land of Invented Languages (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• Instant Translations Coming Soon to a Gizmo Near You (The Olympian)
• Language Degrees to be Reviewed (BBC)
• Language Rated Above Green Issues (BBC)
• Languages in Peril (Financial Times)
• Perfect Pitch Related to Language (Scientific American)
• Rosetta Stone Launches New Content and Languages for Version 3 (SourceWire)
• Uganda Lays Mother-Tongue Foundations (Guardian.Co.Uk)

That’s all for this week. The next news round-up will be posted on Sunday 31st May.

World’s Oldest Blogger Passes Away

I stumbled upon some sad news today when I checked the daily news on the TimesOnline website. María Amelia López Soliño, a great-grandmother from Galicia whose blog, A Mis 95 Años, had captured the hearts of thousands, passed away on May 20th, aged 97. María Amelia began blogging two years ago when her grandson gave her a blog for her 95th birthday. Over the past two years, she has shared her views on a wide range of subjects, dictating her blog entries to her grandson and sharing her thoughts with thousands of readers around the world.

I came across her blog shortly after my grandmother passed away and found her blog very therapeutic as she reminded me of my dear grandmother, who was also Spanish and who had also been through so much in her life. I hope she brought as much joy to her family as my grandmother brought to me.

Descanse en paz, María Amelia.

Translating Recipes

Many language learners and food lovers have toyed with the idea of translating recipes as a way to hone their translations skills and/or as a means of obtaining “authentic” recipes. These days you can use Google to search for Italian recipes in Italian, Japanese bento box ideas in Japanese and find recipes for authentic Sichuan dishes written by Chinese bloggers in Chongqing. Food lovers don’t have to rely on cookbooks written in their own language any longer and don’t have to be content with  “localized” recipes which have been adapted to suit local tastes and ingredients.

Translating recipes can be a fun way to learn new vocabulary and develop translation skills. Some professional translators translate recipes and cookbooks for a living and we shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of translating a cookbook for a foreign readership. While a hobbyist can settle for a less-than-perfect translation of a recipe he or she found on a blog or forum, the translator must pay special attention to register (who is the book being written for?) and be familiar with local measurements and ingredients. Penny Marinou, a translator based in Athens, Greece, discusses the various pitfalls of translating recipes in her article Translating for Recipe Books and Menus.

Another short but insightful article about recipe translation and “localization” can be found here. In it, the author briefly mentions the difference between “translation” and “localization”, the former being the conversion of a recipe from one language to another and the latter involving the translation and adaptation of a recipe to suit the measurements, ingredients and tastes of the target audience. Localization often occurs when some of the ingredients in the original recipe are not readily available and are substituted for other, easily obtainable, ingredients. The author argues that a heavily modified recipe is not a localized recipe but an entirely new creation and cites “chicken tikka masala” as an example. Chicken tikka masala is not an Indian dish which has been adapted to suit British tastes but a dish created by Indian immigrants with local ingredients in mind.

Last but not least, I thought I’d share a link to an article written by Peter Hertzmann, a gourmand with a passion for French cuisine and cookery. The article, Recettes en Français, is a very informative piece about his experiences with translating French recipes into English and lists a few useful resources for other enthusiasts and aspiring translators. He also shares links to recipe databases and explains a lot of the key terms and vocabulary you’re likely to encounter if you try to translate a French-language recipe for yourself.

I’ve toyed with the idea of translating recipes to share with my readers as it would be a great way for me to combine my language skills with my love for foreign cuisines. I’m not sure whether I should post recipes on this blog or whether it would be better to set up a separate blog for recipes and other food-related tidbits so that the focus of this blog doesn’t stray too far from languages and language learning…

Have any of you ever tried to translate a recipe into your native language (or any other language)? If so, what challenges did you face and what resources did you use?

Cast Your Vote!

Observant readers may notice that I’ve added a poll in the right side menu. I’m calling on readers to help me select the two wildcard languages for my A to Z Challenge. I will leave the poll open until June 30th and will choose the two languages which received the most votes as Languages Q and X.

There are several languages to choose from but you are welcome to suggest another language so long as it is a language that isn’t already listed here and isn’t too closely related to the languages already listed as part of my challenge.

Feel free to cast your votes!

Note : The A to Z Challenge is only for European languages. Please don’t submit votes for languages spoken outside of Europe or for constructed languages (e.g. Esperanto, Interlingua, Klingon)

The A to Z Challenge – Updated

I’ve decided to change the conditions and languages of my A to Z Challenge based on the lack of materials for some of the languages I originally chose. The updated challenge will focus solely on European languages and I will only tackle one language per month. Two weeks is not enough time to learn much about a language.

The new list of languages can be found here. Readers should note that there are no languages Q or X at this moment since there are no European languages (or dialects) whose names start with either of these two letters. I plan to conduct a poll which allows you (the readers) to choose two languages for me to add to the list. Possible candidates include Armenian, Romani, and Greek. Other suggestions would be welcome.

For now, I will concentrate on Basque, which I will continue to study until the end of June. I aim to move on to Croatian in July and Danish in August.

Eurovision Song Contest 2009 – The Day After

What a fantastic Eurovision Song Contest we were treated to this year! The entries were generally quite good and the new system of voting did away with the tedious bloc voting that has plagued the Contest over the past decade. Thank you, Russia, for a very enjoyable show.

I have to say that I’m still a bit puzzled by Norway’s runaway success. The song wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t one of my favourites. Perhaps I’m just a little annoyed that only one of my favourite three songs (Azerbaijan, Portugal and Estonia) made it into the top 5 . The UK’s entry was a little dull, in my personal opinion, but it exceeded everyone’s expectations and turned out to be one of the most popular songs of the evening. Well done!

As a language enthusiast, the lack of foreign language entries was a little disappointing but Russia made up for this by inserting little word tips before each entry. I wonder if Norway will do the same next year…

And finally, I wanted to let my readers know that I’ve added a Twitter widget in the right side menu. I created a Twitter account a few weeks ago but I’ve only just got around to using it. I’ll be using Twitter for language practice so feel free to correct any mistakes I make.

Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Another year, another Eurovision Song Contest. While the political voting of recent years has dampened some of my enthusiasm for this annual event, I still tune in every year to see some of the cheesiest music and craziest costume design that Europe has to offer.

The main reason I enjoy watching the contest is the chance to hear songs sung in other languages. Many countries choose to sing in English these days but there are still some countries who choose to go against the Anglophone trend. Serbia’s winning entry in the 2007 Contest, Молитва, proved that you don’t need to sing in English to win the hearts of the viewers. Most of the songs in this year’s final will be sung entirely or partly in English but you will also to be able to hear songs sung in Estonian, Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Bosnian, Croatian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of the entries which made it into the final. I was a little disappointed that the Netherlands failed to qualify, if only to cringe at the Toppers matching outfits and kitsch lyrics. I thought it was the perfect song for the contest but it would seem that thousands (millions?) of other people did not share my sentiments.

The final will be held tonight at 21:00 CET and will be broadcasted on numerous national TV stations as well as online. The live webcast can be seen on the official website.

TED Open Translation Project

Natasha emailed me a few days ago and asked me to post this press release about the TED Open Translation Project. Translators and language specialists who are looking for volunteer work should consider visiting the project’s website to learn more about the project and what they can do to help.

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TED Open-Translation Project brings subtitles in 40+ languages to TED.com

A first-of-its-kind toolset is empowering volunteer translators worldwide to bring TED talks to their communities

NEW YORK, May 13, 2009 — The acclaimed 18-minute talks available free on the TED website will now be accessible beyond the English-speaking world, through the TED Open Translation Project (http://www.ted.com/index.php/OpenTranslationProject), which launches today.

A year in the making, the project offers video subtitles, time-coded transcripts and the ability for volunteers worldwide to translate any talk into any language. The project launches with 300 translations in 40 languages; more than 200 volunteer translators have already contributed.

“TED’s mission is to spread good thinking globally, and so it’s high time we began reaching out to the 4.5 billion people on the planet who don’t speak English,” says TED Curator Chris Anderson. “We’re excited to be using a bottom-up, open-source approach that will in time allow all our talks to be translated into hundreds of languages. A web-empowered revolution in global education is under way. We’re not far from the day when most people on Earth will be able to directly access the world’s great teachers speaking to them in their own language. How cool is that?”

Each of the 400+ talks on TED.com will now offer:

·       Subtitles, in English and many additional languages (several videos carry up to 25 languages at launch)

·       A time-coded, interactive transcript, in multiple languages, which lets you click on any phrase and jump straight to that point in the video. This makes the entire content of the video indexable on search engines

·       Translated headlines and video descriptions, which appear when a new language is selected

·       Language-specific URLs which play the chosen subtitles by default

Generously supported by a visionary sponsorship from Nokia, the TED Open Translation Project is one of the most comprehensive attempts by a major media platform to subtitle and index online video content. It’s also a groundbreaking effort in the public, professional use of volunteer translation.

“Volunteer translation will be increasingly important for anyone trying to reach a global audience,” says June Cohen, Executive Producer of TED Media. “It’s the only feasible way to reach all the world’s languages. Crowd-sourced translation creates communities of volunteers who are passionate about producing great work, accountable for the accuracy of their translations, and invested in evolving the system itself. It turns users into true participants, helping to spread ideas.”

Crowd-sourced translations in all the world’s languages

To launch the Open Translation Project, a handful of talks were professionally translated into 20 languages. But all translations going forward will be provided by volunteers. In fact, volunteer translators have already contributed more than 200 published translations to the project (with 450 more in development). These volunteers range from well-organized groups working together in their own language, to lone translators working individually and matched by TED with others.

To support this program, TED and technology partner dotSUB have developed a set of tools that allow participants around the world to translate their favorite talks into their own language. This approach is scalable, and — importantly — allows speakers of less-dominant languages an equal opportunity to spread ideas within their communities.

This open-source approach mimics the successful strategies of products like Wikipedia, Linux and Mozilla, which have proven the power -– and ultimate reliability –- of open solutions. Crowd-sourced translation has already been proven effective on a handful of sites worldwide, including Wikipedia and the Global Voices blog at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

To ensure quality translations, TED established a set of guidelines and systems to help translators deliver the best work possible. To begin with, a professionally generated (and speaker-approved) English transcript is provided for each talk, so that all translations are based on the same source document. TED then requires every translation to be reviewed by a second fluent speaker before it’s published; both translator and reviewer are credited by name on the site. TED controls the final “publish” button (nothing is “automatically” published), and there are feedback mechanisms for ongoing community input and improvement after publication.

At launch, TED’s Open Translation Project will include more than 300 translations, in more than 40 languages, including Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kirghiz, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese. Our translators hail from cities from Beijing to Buenos Aires; Tehran to Tel Aviv; Espoo, Finland, to Barranquilla, Colombia.

Accurate, searchable, interactive transcripts for every TEDTalk

Each of the 400+ TED talks now has a time-coded, interactive transcript, in English and all available languages. Using this interactive transcript, a user can select any phrase and have the video play from the point where that phrase is spoken. The transcripts will be fully indexable by search engines — in all languages — exposing previously inaccessible content within the talks themselves. For example, someone searching on Google for “green roof” will ultimately find the moment in architect William McDonough’s talk when he discusses Ford’s River Rouge plant, and also the moment in Majora Carter’s talk when she speaks of her green roof project in the South Bronx.

About TED

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then, its scope has broadened to include science, business, the arts, and the global issues facing our world. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives —in 18 minutes. Attendees have called it “the ultimate brain spa” and “a four-day journey into the future.” The diverse audience — CEOs, scientists, creatives, and philanthropists — is as remarkable as the speakers, who have included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Frank Gehry, Sir Richard Branson, Philippe Starck, Isabel Allende and Bono.

TED was first held in Monterey, California, in 1984. In 2001, Chris Anderson’s Sapling Foundation acquired TED from its founder, Richard Saul Wurman. In recent years, TED has expanded to include international conferences, the TED Prize and the free availability of TED talks at TED.com. TEDGlobal 2009, “The Substance of Things Not Seen,” will be held July 21-24, 2009, in Oxford, UK; visit http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2009/ . TEDIndia will be held in Mysore, India, November 1-4, 2009; visit http://conferences.ted.com/TEDIndia/ . TED2010, “What the World Needs Now,” will be held February 9-13, 2010, in Long Beach, California, with a simulcast event in Palm Springs, California; visit http://conferences.ted.com/TED2010/. For details on all upcoming conferences and events, visit http://www.TED.com.

First Steps in Cantonese

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before but I’ve been practising my Mandarin with a Singaporean man who works in the canteen at my company. Although his native language is Hakka, he knows enough Mandarin to have short but insightful conversations with me. I only get to chat with him for a few minutes a day at most thanks to our conflicting work hours (he’s busy when I’m on my lunch break and I’m busy when he’s taking a break between cooking and cleaning dishes) but I cherish the opportunity to perfect my spoken Mandarin as there are precious few opportunities for speaking the language in the Netherlands, especially during work hours.

Today, he decided to start teaching me some basic Cantonese as I mentioned that I had visited Hong Kong a few years ago but couldn’t speak a word of Cantonese. Yesterday he tried (and failed) to teach me some Hakka and Hokkien phrases so we both decided that Cantonese would probably be a better option. He taught me three phrases today :

• 早晨 (jou2 san4) – Good morning
• 多謝 (do1 je6) – Thank you
• 再見 (zoi3 gin3) – Goodbye

I may have used the incorrect romanisations and/or tones here so please correct me if I made any mistakes. There seems to be some disagreement about the number of tones in Cantonese (some books say 6, others say 9 or even 10) and I had trouble finding a standard romanisation for these phrases. If anyone can point me in the direction of a definitive guide to standard Cantonese, it would be greatly appreciated.

I did a little background reading and discovered that Cantonese is believed to have 9 tones, though 3 of these are used for syllables ending in a consonant and are the same as 3 tones used for syllables ending in vowels. This would bring the number down to 6, which is still very daunting for the beginner. The 6 widely recognised tones are :

1 – high level (similar to 1st tone in Mandarin)
2 – mid rising (similar to 2nd tone in Mandarin)
3 – mid level
4 – low falling (similar to 3rd tone in Mandarin except the tone doesn’t rise at the end)
5 – low rising
6 – low level

I have a lot of trouble differentiating between tones 3, 5 and 6 as they sound very similar to the untrained ear. It took me a couple of months to successfully identify the four tones in Mandarin so it’s just a matter of getting used to the sound of spoken Cantonese.

That’s all for today. I bid you all 早抖 jou2 dau2 (good night).

The A to Z Challenge – Basque – Introduction

Today is the first day of my Basque challenge so I thought I’d share a list of some of the resources I will be using over the next 2 weeks. I’ve chosen a range of online and offline resources. There aren’t that many comprehensive courses for learning Basque but I can tell you that finding resources for learning Basque has been much easier than finding books and online courses for learning Albanian.

Here are some of the books, audio courses and websites I plan to use :

Colloquial Basque by Alan R. King and Begotxu Olaizola Elordi – If I cannot find a hard copy of this book in the local library, I will make use of the Google Books preview version instead.

The Basque Language : A Practical Introduction by Alan R. King – Same as above. I borrowed this book from the library I used to work at a few years ago. It was quite a useful book for beginners, though perhaps not as stimulating as Colloquial Basque.

Basque-English, English-Basque Dictionary and Phrasebook by Joseph Conroy – I have a copy of this book in my own personal library (i.e. one of the bookshelves in my living room). It’s quite a handy little book and the phrasebook section can be very useful for learning grammatical structures and thematic vocabulary.

Buber’s Basque Page : Euskara - Numerous resources can be found on this webpage, including some basic lessons and links to online media.

Curso Deusto de Euskera - Three online courses developed by Deusto University. The courses are quite comprehensive but may be useless for anyone who cannot read Spanish.

Assimil Iniciación al Euskara - An Assimil course designed for Spanish speakers wishing to learn Basque. I doubt I can find a hard copy of this course before the end of my 2 week challenge so I may have to rely on an online copy.

Morris Student Plus - An online Basque-English-Basque dictionary.

If you would like to recommend a certain book or online course, you’re welcome to leave a comment with your recommendation.

The A to Z Challenge – Albanian – Summary

About Albanian :

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by around 6 million people in Albania, Kosovo and other parts of the Balkan peninsula. It is written with a modified Latin alphabet and is believed to descend from Illyrian and/or Daco-Thracian. Standard Albanian is a revised form of the Tosk dialect but several other dialects exist, including Gheg and Arbëresh.

Initial Thoughts :

Before embarking on this challenge, I knew very little about Albanian. I knew it was an Indo-European language and that the Albanian name for the language was “Shqip” but I hadn’t made any attempts to study the language before I made it the “A” language in my 26-language challenge. I had no knowledge of its grammar and my vocabulary was limited to “Tungjatjeta” (Hello) and “verdhë” (yellow).

Topics Covered :

During my 2 weeks of studying Albanian, I covered the following topics and lessons :

- 7 lessons of the Pimsleur Albanian (Compact) course.
- Basic sentence structures and travel phrases, including numbers (1 to 100), self-introductions, and greetings.
- Basic grammar, including articles (indefinite and definite), cases, conjunctions and comparative/superlative adjectives.

Challenges :

The biggest challenge for me was memorising declinations and working with cases. I’ve never studied a language with a case system in any real depth so learning how to decline nouns was quite new to me. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Albanian grammar is complicated (it shares some similar features with English and Greek) but I would certainly need to spend a lot more time getting to grips with the various declensions.

Vocabulary was another hurdle. Although Albanian is an Indo-European language, its vocabulary is very different to that of the other IE languages I’ve studied. There are some cognates due to Romance and Germanic influences on the language over the centuries, but on the whole, Albanian vocabulary is quite alien. There is little transparency between Albanian and English so a lot of effort would need to be focussed on learning new vocabulary (and their declensions!)

Last but not least, the lack of resources for learning the language is probably one of the biggest obstacles facing the language learner. Unless you’re able to find a native speaker or spend some time in Albania, you’ll be limited to the resources I mentioned yesterday and perhaps a few other out-dated courses which can be found at the ERIC website. The Pimsleur course is a good introduction to the spoken language and the Peace Corps manuals can be quite helpful but there isn’t a Teach Yourself Albanian course (or is there?) and the Colloquial Albanian course was quite disappointing. The general lack of interest in the language means that we won’t be seeing an Albanianpod.com any time soon..

Final Thoughts :

Two weeks is not enough time to master even the basics of the language but it has given me enough time to get a feel for the written and spoken language. I liked the sound of the spoken language and it was quite rewarding to be able to understand simple conversations after working through the first seven lessons of the Pimsleur course. I didn’t make as much progress with the written language as I would have liked to, though this was mostly due to a very limited vocabulary base. As I mentioned above, there are some cognates but even simple texts were difficult to work through as most of the vocabulary was foreign to me.

Albanian was an interesting language to study but I have little reason to continue studying it after I have completed my “A to Z Challenge”. The lack of resources for learning the language is one of the key reasons I won’t be returning to Albanian, at least not for the time being. Nevertheless, it has been an educational two weeks and I don’t rule out the possibility that I may return to Shqip in future.

By the way, if anyone is interested, I’d be happy to post my Albanian notes online. The notes aren’t very detailed and are probably riddled with errors but they might be of some use to those of you who are interested in learning a bit more about the language.

That’s all for now. It’s on to Basque tomorrow. Natën e mirë.

The A to Z Challenge – Albanian – Resources

It’s been two weeks since I embarked on my “A to Z Challenge”. I’ve spent the last two weeks studying Albanian at a (very) basic level and I thought I’d share my thoughts on some of the resources available for learning this language.

Albanian Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Albania :

I found this course via a search on the ERIC website and it was perhaps one of the most useful resources I was able to find for learning Albanian. The course is designed for Peace Corps volunteers living and working in Albania but there’s no reason why this course wouldn’t be useful for casual learners who want to acquaint themselves with the language.

The course focuses on the spoken language and contains plenty of example dialogues and useful vocabulary. Each lesson focuses on a particular theme, such as food and drink and buying train tickets, and there is a handy grammar overview and an Albanian-English word list after the main course text. My only complaint about this course is the quality of the scanned images. Some of the text is a little hard to read but it is otherwise a comprehensive and well-designed course for anyone who wants to gain basic proficiency in the Albanian language.

Colloquial Albanian by Isa Zymberi :

I wasn’t able to obtain a copy of this book at my local library but I managed to find a preview copy on Google Books. While it is one of the few textbooks around for learning Albanian, I found it lacking in quality and didn’t like the way that the lessons were arranged. The grammar explanations did not go into much detail and I found the lack of English translations somewhat unhelpful. I had to keep referring back to the word lists to see what each word and phrase meant, which got tedious after a while.

The book may have been more useful if I had a copy of the CD that comes with it but I would rather use the Peace Corps course mentioned above than choose this book as my main resource for learning the language.

Albanian World :

One of the few good websites for learning basic Albanian. If you ignore the bright red background of its main page, you’ll find that the lessons are actually quite useful and are very easy to follow. A lot of vocabulary is covered in the ten or so lessons which are on the website and the course author makes use of simple dialogues to teach you basic sentence structures and conversational Albanian.

Its key flaw is that there aren’t that many lessons online and that the lessons jump from lesson 8 to lesson 38, which limits the learner’s progress. Anyone wishing to follow the full course could consider buying the author’s book.

Pimsleur Albanian (Compact) :

I chose this course as my key audio course simply because it is the only one that I know of. The compact course consists of ten 30-minute lessons and covers a lot of the basic phrases and sentence structures that a tourist or visiting businessman would want to know, including self-introductions and ordering drinks at a local bar.

I listened to 7 lessons during my 2-week Albanian adventure and would recommend this course to anyone who wants to get a feel for spoken Albanian. The course only covers the bare basics of the language but it is a good platform for further study.

Moving On :

Tomorrow I will be posting a review of my 2 weeks of studying the Albanian language. After that, it’ll be time to move on to language B, Basque.