Course description: Level 1 is for complete beginners or those who have had only very little contact with the language. The course runs over three ten-week terms and each session is two hours long. The course includes all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The aim of the course is to enable students to function in simple everyday situations and get by in Albanian. This includes knowledge of basic vocabulary, grammar, morphology, syntax, and phonetics. The course will cover the following:
Topics: The alphabet and pronunciation, greetings, numbers, days, months, seasons, time expressions, weather, my family, parts of the body, people characteristics, directions, describing and enquiring about daily routine, buying clothes and groceries, ordering in a café, reservations/travelling. Cultural references: typical foods, simple proverbs, polite exchanges.
Functions: Introductions and greetings, understanding numbers (telephone numbers, prices, dates), formal and informal forms of address, ordering food and drinks, writing a shopping list, buying clothes, describing people, expressing likes and dislikes, understanding and giving basic directions, making requests, asking for permission, describing daily routines, talking about weather.
Grammar: Definite and indefinite forms of masculine and feminine nouns, word order, interrogative and negative sentences, plurals, the five cases of singular masculine and feminine nouns in the definite and indefinite form, modal verbs, verbs in present tense, future tense and past tense, subjunctive mood, articled /non articled adjectives, degrees of the adjectives, simple prepositions and conjunctions, numerals, personal pronouns, possessive pronouns following a noun in the nominative case, simple adverbs, imperative.
Learning resources:
Course book
Discovering Albanian 1 (Textbook and workbook), Linda Mëniku and Hector Campos, The University of Wisconsin Press
Additional materials
Teacher’s materials and selected materials from the following books:
- Shqip, S’ka problem, Albanian language for beginners." by Mihallaq Millexhiu and Fatmir Hoxha
- Ckemi, Practical Albanian for the English speakers
- Gjuha shqipe (a publication of 1975)
- Te mesojme se bashku gjuhen shqipe by Lumni Radovicka