When I use an Albanian phrase in my day-to-day encounters with Albanians, I’m always treated to approving encouragement (often accompanied with a little smile/giggle). Whether the smile/giggle is because I’ve butchered the phrase or because they approve of my moderate expertise, it’s clear that people appreciate my effort.
I find Albanian a difficult language. What makes it so hard is most of the words aren’t like anything I can relate to. And, in my opinion, the language has way too many letters in its alphabet (36), way too many consonants (29), way too few vowels (7), and impossible to pronounce digraphs . . . where the combination of two letters represents one sound (9) dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, and zh.
And, there are often too many syllables in a word!
For example, take the English word Hello. It has six letters. Three are consonants and two are vowels. It has just two syllables.
The Albanian word for Hello is përshëndetje (per zun det ee yah). The accent falls on the italicized syllable. This word has twelve letters. Eight are consonants and four are vowels. It has five syllables! It doesn’t resemble any English word whatsoever, so there’s no place in my brain where I have stored a word remotely like it.
It takes about a week for my brain to develop new synapses and my mouth muscles to develop new shapes. Then I can remember the word and pronounce it correctly.
On November 6th, which is about ten days from the day I am posting this blog, Barry and I will celebrate our first anniversary as Albanian residents. In the beginning we spent a lot of time getting settled, and I spent an extraordinary amount of time navigating the Albanian health care system. (For details of that adventure, click here to see my August 19, 2025 post https://jennandbarry.com/jennifers-health-care-odyssey. If you click the link you can return here by just using your back arrow.)
During this first year I have incorporated eighteen Albanian words/phrases into my daily dialogue. BUT, there is one Albanian phrase I do know but never use because it would produce a response I would not understand.
How are you? . . . si je (see yeah). The first time an Albanian said “si je” to me I thought she was using the English phrase you might use in place of Goodbye . . . See you. When I caught on she was actually asking me how I was, I responded shumë mirë (shoom meer) meaning very good! That always produces a smile!
My English/Albanian dictionary (the italicized syllable gets the accent).
Goodbye . . . mirupafshim (meer oo paf shim) often just pafshime (bye)
Please (also used for “you’re welcome”) . . . të lutem (too loo tem)
Thank you . . . faleminderit (fah leh min dare it)
Good morning . . . mirëmëngjes (meer men jes)
Good night . . . natën e mirë (nah ten eh meer ah)
I don’t understand . . . Nuk kuptoj (nuke koop toy)
How are you? . . . si je (see yah)
Good . . . mirë (meer ah)
Very good . . . shumë mirë (shoom meer)
Anything you’d give a thumbs up sign for . . . bravo
Have a nice day . . . kalofshi mirë (kah loaf she meer ah)
Forgive me . . . me fal (meh fahl)
How much does that cost . . . sa kushton (sah coosh tone) Always ask that before you get into a taxi.
Cheers (what you say when you clink cocktail glasses together) . . . gëzuar (gez zoo whar).
Yes . . . po (poe)
No . . . jo (yo)
Without . . . pa (pah)
The Google Translate app often generates a phrase that gets me a quizzical look from a local. So I tell the person the English version of what I want to say and they correct me, for which I am eternally grateful!
Now that we are comfortably settled and I have plenty of time on my hands (which lately has been squandered on surfing YouTube for hours followed by significant afternoon naps) it’s time to buckle down and make space to learn new words and phrases! At the very least I should learn my numbers from 1 to 100.
Here is something weird
Twenty-plus years ago my then-husband Dave and I thought we might like to retire in Mexico. I tried very hard to learn Spanish. I went to Mexico twice for language immersion learning . . . once for three weeks and once for two weeks. I lived with a Mexican family where there was No se habla ingles en la casa.
I also had a Learn Spanish CD course I played in my car every time I drove around Lodi.
Eventually I considered the whole effort hopeless. And anyway we had decided Mexico wasn’t the place for us. Lodi was it.
Fast Forward Twenty-Plus Years
Believe it or not, today when I find myself struggling for the correct Albanian word very often the correct SPANISH word pops up in my brain. ¿Dónde está el baño? Go figure! I have hope that my effort to learn Albanian is actively building synapses in the language retention part of my brain and the right words will sooner rather than later bubble up as easily as the Spanish words of yore do!
Mirupafshim. Kalofshi mirë!
Jennifer, I find your posts most interesting. You and your husband are out of the ordinary in that you act rather than just dream or ponder. I’m not sure I could ever retire to England, but I consider it a second home.
I have sent you my Soft Adventure Travel ebook. These are travel articles that detail mostly travel with tour groups that I put together. Hope you receive it. The Amazon page says it will be delivered only to recipients in the US, but how will Amazon know a .com address is not in the U.S.? We’ll see
Harlan
Hi Harlan,
Thank you so much for the gift of your book. I can’t wait to read it! Next week will be our 1st anniversary of being Albanian residents. We are pretty much settled and have developed some roots here. We have everything we need right where we are. I am thinking of doing a blog post of Meet Our Neighbors where I take a picture of the business and its owner with a little blurb of how they make our life comfortable.
ONWARD!
Jennifer