Best Apps For Learning Albanian: 3 Exciting Examples

Original blog post: https://ling-app.com/sq/best-apps-for-learning-albanian/

Are you desperate to know what the best apps for learning Albanian are? Look no further. We might be a little biased because we think that Ling is the best app; however, we’ll aim to offer you an objective analysis of what all your options are.

Some Basic Information About The Albanian Language

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken in the nation of Albania and in ethnic communities in other areas of the Balkans. In total, Albania has approximately 7.5 million speakers.

Albanians call their language Shqipëri, which linguistic historians think means ‘pronounce intelligibly.’

There are two dominant dialects, Gheg and Tosk (Tosk is prevalent in the South and Gheg in the North). Official Albanian in the roman script wasn’t standardized until 1909.

Some Basic Information About Albania

Albania is located in Southeast Europe. Interestingly, it’s hemmed in by 3 different seas, the Adriatic, the Ionian, and the Mediterranean. Its land borders are with Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Greece. Its capital is Tirana.

Albania has a fascinating history. Many of the world’s greatest civilizations have heavily influenced it, including the Illyrians, Greeks, Ottomans, and Romans. For the latter part of the 20th century, it was under the rule of a communist dictatorship; however, the 21st century has seen capitalist reforms. In 2014 Albanian even joined the European Union!

Note: We hear from many Albanian learners that the main reason they want to learn the language is that they’re taking a short holiday to Albania. This doesn’t surprise us. Albania has seen a 700% rise in tourism numbers over recent years.

The reasons for this are twofold. The capital is becoming a great place to visit for a staycation. It’s cheap, fun, and there’s plenty to do. Secondly, the Albanian coast is known as the Albanian Riviera for its comparison to the south coast of France.

Best Apps For Learning Albanian

Pimsleur

Probably the most famous app on this list for learning a new language is Pimsleur. For £17.50 you can gain access to an Albanian course. However, it’s worth paying £1 extra, so you can then gain access to all of their 50 native language courses.

Pros

• The 7-day free trial is a great way to see if you like the program.
• The moderator guides you a lot at first and then gradually disappears as you get more proficient. Most people see this as a pro, but it could be viewed as a con if you don’t like an initial hand-holding approach
• Interactive learning techniques such as a spaced repetition system for vocabulary. However, this is a feature now utilized by most language learning apps. That being said, the presentation of real-life exchanges of vocabulary is a good feature
• Pimsleuer is flexible. Many apps market themselves in terms of how you can fit learning easily into your hectic learning schedule. A particularly good feature is the driving mode that offers a hands-off learning experience
• The user interface is really pretty!

Cons

• Pimsleur is super expensive even compared to the likes of Rosetta Stone which is about £3 cheaper. It’s almost 4x the price of Ling!
• I would expect some kind of voice recognition technology for the price, so the app can tell by your speech pattern if you’re pronouncing words correctly
• The lessons are all audio-based, so not ideal for visual learners

There isn’t much writing and grammar practice for those of you who like that kind of thing.

uTalk

uTalk is a relative newcomer to the market. It was started by two English friends who wanted to learn French and realized books just weren’t up to it. The company is based in London, and its biggest selling point is the 140+ languages it offers. No course offers so many other languages to language learners.

Pros

• A Good user interface with clear directions once you’re in the app
• Not only a wide range of languages, but also a wide range of topics

Cons

• The app claims to have phrase practice; however, it’s basically just vocabulary practice with individual words.
• There is not much, if any, grammar practice. Personally, I’m not too fond of grammar practice, but I think a little is important
• No writing practice. This isn’t such a big deal in Albanian because it’s based on the Latin writing script. However, it is a massive problem if you want to learn something like Mandarin
• The app speed is painfully slow and will frustrate even the most patient of learners. It can take 10 minutes to download 1 course
• If you go for the option of uTalk coins, it is super expensive if you want to learn more than 1 course.
• Once you sign up to the platform, you receive a lot of spam mail

Learn Albanian With Ling

We’re not saying this because we’re biased, but we firmly believe Ling is the best language learning app for learning Albanian. The two previously mentioned definitely have some merits; however, their downsides are too big compared to Ling’s.

To put it simply, Pimsleur is just too expensive for what you get. uTalk is probably also too expensive. However, its biggest drawback is undeniably its functionality. If they want to stick around in the market, they need to make massive improvements in the speed of their app.

Ling is a more well-rounded app than the two and ticks all boxes. Ling makes the learning process fun. We have to speak, listening, reading, and writing practice. There is also grammar practice.

The best thing about Ling is the price. Its running costs are low because its headquarters are in the super affordable area of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out our Albanian blog, which is updated twice a week. On there, you’ll find everything from relationship vocabulary in Albanian to color names in Albanian.