Home / Best apps to learn a language / Albanian
Prices and language coverage checked in October 2026.
Albanian has about 7.5 million native speakers, by a 2017 estimate cited on Wikipedia. It is the official language of Albania, an official language of Kosovo beside Serbian, co-official in North Macedonia since 2019 and in official use in Montenegro, and it forms its own branch of Indo-European, with no close living relative. Its two main dialects are Gheg, in the north and in Kosovo, and Tosk, in the south; the standard of 1972 is built on Tosk. What Albanian asks of an app is a course at all, then grammar: definite endings, cases and a mood English lacks.
No big app has a full Albanian course. Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone, Mondly, Drops, Glossika, Mango and LingQ have no Albanian course, and Memrise only word lists made by users; Pimsleur sells 10 lessons, and Ling is the one app with a full course. The rest of the path is a textbook with audio, a tutor, teachers on YouTube and Albanian TV. So the apps below are compared on whether they teach a course at all, which variety they use, whether they explain the grammar, what is free on day 30 and who corrects your Albanian.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Albanian in category III (of I to IV), about 1,100 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Standard Albanian was set at the Orthography Congress in Tirana in November 1972 and is built on Tosk, the dialect of the south, per Wikipedia. Gheg, spoken in northern Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro, has long and nasal vowels that Tosk lacks, says dimën where Tosk says dimër (“winter”) and keeps an infinitive with me (me punue), which the standard leaves out. Pimsleur teaches Tosk, Ling does not say, and Preply lists tutors from Kosovo. Learn the standard, and train your ear on Gheg with a Kosovo tutor or RTK if you are heading there.
The alphabet has 36 letters, 9 of them written as pairs (dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh) and 2 with marks (ç, ë), and each stands for one sound, per Wikipedia, so you can read aloud in your first week. The sounds to learn are the pairs: l and ll, a tapped r and a trilled rr, and th and dh, as in English “thin” and “this”. Colloquial Albanian opens with the sound system and free audio, and Pimsleur, Ling and 50LANGUAGES give native audio. Learn the letters with audio before anything else.
Albanian puts the definite article on the end of the noun: zog is “a bird”, zogu “the bird”. Nouns have three genders, the neuter rare, and six cases, though the vocative is limited and the genitive and dative share their forms; verbs add an admirative mood for surprise, irony or doubt, unique in the Balkans, per Wikipedia. Colloquial Albanian and Discovering Albanian I explain this lesson by lesson; Pimsleur and 50LANGUAGES teach patterns without it. Learn every noun with its definite form, and keep one book that explains the grammar.
Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone and Mondly have no Albanian at all. Pimsleur sells Level 1 only, 10 lessons and about 5 hours. 50LANGUAGES stops at A2 by its own label, and Ling’s 200 lessons carry no level. Discovering Albanian I is the one course with a level claim past A2, A2/B1 on completion by UW Press, and Colloquial Albanian prints none. Past that no course remains, app or book. Plan on a tutor from A2, and on Albanian TV and reading after B1.
Albania’s citizenship law of 2020 asks for spoken and written Albanian, certified by an educational establishment, after 7 years with a permanent residence permit, and sets no level. The University of Tirana’s Faculty of History and Philology runs the exam, written and oral, at a level you choose from A1 to C2 or a general level, for 5,000 lekë. Kosovo asks for elementary reading and writing in Albanian or Serbian. The same faculty ran a course for foreigners in September 2026, A1 to C2, for US$390. Ask the office handling your application which level it expects before you book.
Best structured course
Ling is the only app we found with a full Albanian course: 200 lessons across the four skills, per its own review, updated on 24 August 2026. It names no CEFR level or variety, and that review says the app alone will not make you fluent, so pair it with a textbook.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to A2 learners who want a daily Albanian course on a phone and will pay for it.
Best self-study textbook
The 3rd edition of Routledge’s course (2025), by Linda Mëniku of the University of Tirana and Héctor Campos of Georgetown: 15 units of dialogues, grammar and exercises, with a key, for learners with no Albanian. It explains the grammar that the apps leave out, and Routledge prints no CEFR level for it.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Self-learners from zero who want the grammar explained in order, with dialogues and native audio.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 53 Albanian tutors, from Albania and from Kosovo on its first page, so you can learn the standard or hear Gheg. With no app course past A2, a tutor matters sooner: below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain the definite forms and cases in your language; from B1 on, a weekly lesson corrects your Albanian.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to and to explain the grammar, in the Albanian of the place they are heading to.
Best university textbook
The University of Wisconsin Press course by Mëniku and Campos (2011): 18 lessons built on real-life situations, 3 of them reviews, with a workbook and native audio. UW Press says it brings students to “the A2/B1 level” of the CEFR, the highest claim we found for an Albanian textbook.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to B1 learners who want a university syllabus with a workbook, alone or with a tutor.
Best tutors without a subscription
italki lists 24 Albanian tutors, community tutors and professional teachers, with trial lessons from US$5 to US$20 on its first page, sold one lesson at a time with no subscription. It is the pay as you go alternative to Preply for a lesson now and then; Preply has about twice the tutors.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A lesson now and then, paid one at a time, from A1 up.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of an Albanian book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. It has no Albanian shelf, so you read its Stories, then Albanian EPUBs you import; the free classics are mostly page scans. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 learners reading the Stories, and B1 and up readers who import Albanian books they own and want their own language under the text.
Best for speaking from lesson one
Pimsleur’s Albanian is one level of 10 audio lessons, about 5 hours, in Tosk, “the southern dialect and official language of the Republic of Albania”, per its page: you answer out loud, and words come back at spaced intervals. It publishes no CEFR level and sells no Level 2.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A trip in a few weeks, or anyone who wants to say their first Albanian sentences before they read.
Best free phrase course
Goethe Verlag’s 50LANGUAGES gives Albanian 100 free lessons of everyday sentences spoken by native speakers, A1 and A2 by its own label. It is a phrasebook with audio rather than a full course, with no grammar explained, and the largest free set of Albanian lessons we found.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to A2 learners who want free Albanian sentences with native audio beside a paid course or a textbook.
Best free video lessons
The largest Albanian teaching channel we found that is still running: about 1,000 short lessons in English on phrases and grammar, with 19,100 subscribers and new videos on 30 September, 2 October and 5 October 2026. It is the free daily Albanian we would add beside Ling or a textbook.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A0 to B1 learners who want a free Albanian phrase or grammar point a day.
Best for video input
Albanian subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click, free for subtitles and lookups. YouTube makes automatic captions in Albanian, so Top Channel (3.3 million subscribers), RTSH and Kosovo’s RTK become input. The Netflix side broke in June 2026 and in September works with known bugs.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning Albanian TV on YouTube into listening practice.
Best for reading on a laptop
Readlang translates the word or phrase you click on a web page or in a text you import, on the web and in Chrome, and keeps it as a flashcard. Its own language list has Albanian in beta, with 33 books in its library. Use it for Albanian news sites on a laptop.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up readers of Albanian news and web pages on a laptop.
Best vocabulary trainer
Free spaced repetition with shared Albanian decks on AnkiWeb, among them Albanian (EN to SQ) | 625 Words, with audio and IPA, and a Pimsleur Albanian deck of the course’s 10 lessons. It is the cheapest way to keep the words you meet in lessons and books, and it teaches nothing on its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Keeping the words you met in videos, books and lessons, at any level.
Ling + Colloquial Albanian + 50LANGUAGES
Pick one course and work through it every day: Ling on a phone, or Colloquial Albanian with its free audio if you want the grammar explained. Learn the 36 letters with audio in your first week, and hear whole sentences in 50LANGUAGES’ free lessons. Pimsleur is the paid choice if you want to speak before you read, and Learn Shqip’s free videos fill the gaps.
Discovering Albanian I + Preply + Anki
Keep a course going to B1: 50LANGUAGES stops at A2 by its own label and Ling names no level, so move on to Discovering Albanian I, which UW Press labels A2/B1. Book a Preply tutor once a week, from Kosovo if Gheg is what you will hear, and keep every new word in Anki. Start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2, then Albanian books you import, since it has no Albanian shelf.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read the Albanian novels you own in Lingo7, such as Kadare’s, watch Top Channel, RTSH and Kosovo’s RTK with Language Reactor, and talk about all of it with your tutor. With a date for the Tirana exam, book a tutor who has taught that exam.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for Albanian | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ling | Best structured course | A0 to A2 | Variety not stated; 200 lessons by Ling’s blog; no CEFR claim; first 2 units free | First 2 units (8 lessons) | US$17 a month, US$8 a month yearly |
| Colloquial Albanian | Best self-study textbook | A0 to B1 | Standard Albanian, by our reading; 15 units, 358 pages, 3rd edition 2025; no CEFR label; free MP3 audio | Audio only | US price not shown; audio free |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 53 Albanian tutors, among them tutors from Albania and Kosovo; US$12 to US$60 an hour, average US$23 | None | Average US$23 an hour, subscription only |
| Discovering Albanian I | Best university textbook | A0 to B1 | Standard Albanian, by our reading; 18 lessons, 3 of them reviews; A2/B1 by UW Press; workbook and paid audio | None | US$40 once; workbook and audio US$20 each |
| italki | Best tutors without a subscription | A1 to C2 | 24 Albanian tutors; trial lessons US$5 to US$20; pay as you go | None | Trials US$5 to 20; no subscription |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | No Albanian public domain shelf; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in an Albania accent, one voice; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| Pimsleur | Best for speaking from lesson one | A0 to A1 | Tosk, the standard of Albania, per Pimsleur; Level 1 only: 10 lessons, about 5 hours; no vendor CEFR claim | 7 day trial | US$50 once, or about US$20 a month |
| 50LANGUAGES | Best free phrase course | A0 to A2 | Variety not stated; 100 lessons of sentences read by native speakers; A1 and A2 by its own label | All 100 lessons, with ads | Free; US$2.99 to remove ads |
| Learn Shqip | Best free video lessons | A0 to B1 | About 1,000 videos in English; 19,100 subscribers; new videos on 30 September, 2 October and 5 October 2026 | All of it | Free |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any Albanian YouTube video with subtitles, automatic captions included; Netflix working with known bugs in September 2026 | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
| Readlang | Best for reading on a laptop | B1 to C1 | Albanian in beta, “low resource” in its language list; 33 books in its library; click to translate on any web page | Unlimited words, 10 phrases a day | US$6 a month, US$4 a month yearly |
| Anki | Best vocabulary trainer | A1 to C1 | Shared decks: Albanian (EN to SQ) | 625 Words with audio and IPA, Pimsleur Albanian, Albanian Sentences | All of it (iOS US$24.99) | Free; iOS US$25 once |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of October 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: short Albanian texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in October 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
No: Duolingo has no Albanian course from any base language, per its own course list of 313 courses on 5 October 2026, and Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone and Mondly have none either. The free start is 50LANGUAGES’ 100 lessons with native audio, A1 and A2 by its own label, with Learn Shqip’s YouTube lessons beside it. The one full app course is Ling, 200 lessons, at US$16.99 a month or US$89.99 a year, and Colloquial Albanian explains the grammar. Add a tutor once you can put a few sentences together.
For most learners, standard Albanian: it was set at the Orthography Congress in Tirana in November 1972 and is built on Tosk, the southern dialect, and it is what Pimsleur teaches. Gheg, spoken in northern Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro, has long and nasal vowels the standard lacks, keeps n where Tosk has r (dimën against dimër, “winter”) and has an infinitive with me (me punue), per Wikipedia. Ling does not say which it teaches. If you are heading for Kosovo, book a Preply tutor from there and watch RTK.
Yes, in Tirana. Albania’s citizenship law of 2020 asks for spoken and written Albanian certified by an educational establishment, plus basic Albanian history, after 7 years with a permanent residence permit. The University of Tirana’s Faculty of History and Philology holds the language exam regularly, written and oral, at a level the candidate picks from A1 to C2 or a general level, for 5,000 lekë, with the certificate a week later. Kosovo asks for elementary reading and writing in Albanian or Serbian. No app here is an exam course, so book a tutor who has taught that exam.
Yes, once a course has given you the definite endings: the spelling matches the sounds, so you can read aloud early, but graded readers are scarce, and Lingo Mastery and Olly Richards publish none in Albanian. Lingo7, our app, puts a translation under each sentence of an Albanian book, reads it aloud in an Albania accent and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. It has no Albanian shelf, so begin with its Stories, then import Albanian EPUBs you own. The free classics are mostly page scans on the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg has no Albanian books, and Kadare is bought.
For a course, 50LANGUAGES: 100 free lessons of sentences with native audio, A1 and A2 by its own label, with ads; Ling’s free plan stops after 2 units (8 lessons). For explanations, Learn Shqip’s YouTube lessons, and for a level check, Shqipify’s free level test and flashcards. For words, Anki’s shared Albanian decks. For listening, Top Channel, RTSH and RTK on YouTube with Language Reactor. For reading, Readlang’s free tier on Albanian web pages. For a tutor you pay: Preply on a subscription, or italki with none, with trial lessons from US$5.
The FSI lists Albanian among the “Hard languages” of its Category III. Reading is not the reason: the 36 letters, 9 of them written as pairs such as sh and xh, each stand for one sound, so you can read aloud in your first week. The work is the grammar, with the definite article on the end of the noun (zog, “a bird”, zogu, “the bird”), six cases and an admirative mood for surprise or doubt, and words that share little with English. Scholars find many Latin loans, some claiming 60% of the vocabulary, and about 2,000 Turkish ones, per Wikipedia.
Read your first page free, in Albanian.