Current level: A2~B1 speaking, B1 reading.
Goals: B2 speaking, B2 reading.
Materials: №1 Discovering Albanian 1 [Textbook] [83% COMPLETION], auth. Linda Mëniku & Héctor Campos, 416 pages (The Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2011). №2 Dizionario albanese. Albanese-italiano, italiano-albanese, 444 pages (DeAgostini, 2008).
After 16 months of laboring through №1, including the two hiatuses that I took, 7 and 4 months long respectively—wait, then it's really only 5 months that I spent going through the textbook!—I've finally attained a solid intermediate level of knowledge of Standard Albanian.
Short-term goals are to 1.) work through the 3 lessons I have left in №1, 2.) keep up with daily Anki reviews and not let reviews pileup, and 3.) continue expanding upon what I already know. For those interested, I will strive to post one song and its translation per week, perhaps with an accompanying morphological gloss if I've feeling up to it. (Nobody ended up expressing any interest in this, so I didn't bother going through with it. However, if even a single one of you is interested, don't hesitate to let me know.)
- Gheg Albanian (gegnisht)
Current level: A0~1 speaking, A1 reading. (Southern & Central Gheg)
Goals: A2 speaking, B1 reading.
Materials: №1 DLI Albanian Language Course • plisi.org.
After enough time has passed for me to have consolidated the material from the aforementioned 3 final lessons of №1, some long-term goals of mine are to 1.) start venturing out into a Gheg dialect, 2.) make a concerted effort to switch from the "clean", neutral, and unmarked Northern Tosk accent I have now to a looser, more "relaxed" Southern or Central Gheg accent, 3.) master the most frequent and most important lexical items specific to Gheg, and, 4.) respectively, get accustomed to hearing and using Gheg-specific grammatical constructions. However, I'm not ultimately sure just how in-depth I'll be able to go with it—it depends on how soon I can find a №2. (Never mind—with the finding of plisi.org, this is no longer an issue.)
- † Proto-Albanian (gjuha proto-shqipe • shqipja e vjetër ‹Old Albanian› • parashqipja ‹Pre-Albanian›)
†I've decided to use the Latin flag to represent Proto-Albanian since the ancestors of the modern Albanians during this time period had been under Roman governance and cultural influence for quite some time, and it is during this time that the first Latin loanwords started entering PA.
Current level: (CEFR scale N/A here.) As of now, I merely know the [attested] PA ancestors of some few dozen MnA words of indigenous stock or so, having only learned a couple of the phonological evolutions behind them, e.g.: PA *sana (thing) → MnA gjâ, PA *sina (breast) → MnA gji, and PA *seksti- (six) → MnA gjashtë, showing *s- → gj-; PA *bardza (white) → MnA (i,e) bardhë and PA *ambi-ledza (to gather, collect) → MnA mbledh, showing *-dz- → -dh-.
Goals: (CEFR scale N/A here.) I have no clear-cut goal. I'm primarily interested in studying the evolution of historical Albanian phonology, as well as finding out in which spots MnA grammar has simplified and sanded itself down, what with its reputation for prominent syncretism. It's been a fantasy of mine to study PA for a little while now, and I eagerly look forward to studying the first chapter.
Materials: №1 A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language: Reconstruction of Proto-Albanian, auth. Vladimir Orel, 355 pages (BRILL, 2000).
Romanian (limba română • românește)
Current level: A0 speaking, A0 reading.
Goals: A2 speaking, B1 reading.
Materials: №1 TY Romanian, auth. Dennis Deletant & Yvonne Alexandrescu, 273 pages (McGraw-Hill, 1992, 2003).
ᴘᴀssɪᴠᴇ Turkish (Türkçe)
Current level: A0~A1 speaking, A1 reading.
Goals: A2 speaking, B1 reading.
Materials: №1 Colloquial Turkish, auth. Yusuf Mardin, 291 pages (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976). №2 Starting Turkish, auth. Orhan Doğan, 95 pages (Milet Publishing, 2006).
ᴘᴀssɪᴠᴇ Old English (i.e. Anglo-Saxon) (Ænglisċ)
Current level: A1 speaking, A1 reading.
Goals: A2 speaking, B1 reading.
Materials: №1 “An Old English Grammar and Exercise Book” [100% COMPLETION], auth. C. Alphonso Smith, 89 pages (Louisiana State University, 1896) [click here for public-domain digital PDF]. №2 Teach Yourself Complete Old English (Anglo-Saxon), auth. Mark Atherton, 341 pages (McGraw-Hill, 2010).
My Old English skills, which hadn't yet even matured to begin with, have gone dormant, but it shouldn't be an issue for me to resuscitate them; it'll just take a couple weeks, then I'll be all up-to-date. I'll start knocking out the backed-up Anki reviews, reviving all that I learnt from №1 over the summer, after which I will be ready to move on to №2.
In addition to my active study of №2, I shall also be reading at least an article per week from the Old English Wikipedia, so that I can get used to OE word construction and get a feel for "practical" OE, taking note of any new vocabulary I pick up in the process.
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ᴏɴ ʜᴏʟᴅ Mandarin Chinese (Simplified) (中文 Zhōngwén)
Current level: A0 speaking, A0 reading.
Goals: A1 speaking, A2 reading.
Materials: №1 Cinese in 21 giorni (‘Chinese in 21 Days’), auth. Massimo De Donno, 379 pages (Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.p.A., 2016). №2 Memrise: Mandarin Chinese 1 [100% COMPLETION]. №3 Memrise: Mandarin Chinese 2. №4 Memrise: Mandarin Chinese 3.
ᴏɴ ʜᴏʟᴅ Italian (Italiano)
Current level: B1 speaking, B1 reading.
Goals: B2 speaking, C1 reading.
Materials: №1 Italian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar, auth. Carlo Graziano, 247 pages (McGraw-Hill, 2008). №2 Italian Vocabulary, auth. Daniela Gobetti, 216 pages (McGraw-Hill, 2012). №3 Parla e Scrivi: La lingua italiana come L2 a livello elementare e avanzato, 325 pages (Cendali Editori in Firenze, 2011).