75 Essential Albanian Phrases for Your First Trip (or Your First Family Dinner)

Whether you are landing in Tirana for the first time or sitting down to dinner with a partner’s family, a few dozen phrases in Albanian change the room. This guide gives you 75 of them, grouped by situation, each with a plain-English pronunciation respelling and notes on when to use it. It ends with a short section on formal and informal “you”, and a side note on what changes when the family is from Kosovo or northern Albania.

How to read the pronunciation

Albanian uses a Latin alphabet of 36 letters, nine of them two-letter combinations (dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh), fixed at the Congress of Manastir in 1908. Spelling is very regular: once you know the letters, you can pronounce almost any word you see. The respellings below put the stressed syllable in CAPITALS. A few letters trip up English speakers: ë is the short neutral “a” in “sofa”, often barely heard at the end of a word; ç is “ch”; q sits between “ch” and “ky”; gj is a soft “j”, close to the “dy” in “did you”; xh is the “j” in “jam”; y is the French “u” (say “ee” with rounded lips); and rr is a rolled r. Stress usually falls on the last syllable of the stem, not counting a final ë, which is why faleminderit is fah-leh-meen-DEH-reet. When in doubt, ask a native speaker.

Greetings and politeness

These fifteen phrases will carry you through most first meetings. Notice that the time-of-day greetings all start with mirë, “good”.

Tungjatjeta is the warm, traditional greeting, especially common among Albanians from Kosovo and the north; younger people often shorten it to “tung”. Përshëndetje is the safe, all-purpose option. Both work at any hour.

Introducing yourself

Nobody expects a visitor or a heritage learner to speak perfectly. Saying “I am learning Albanian” in Albanian buys goodwill, and usually a slower, kinder conversation.

For other countries, swap in Amerika ah-MEH-ree-ka, Anglia AN-glee-a or Gjermania jer-ma-NEE-a. If you are a heritage speaker, “Prindërit e mi janë shqiptarë” PREEN-duh-reet eh mee YA-nuh shchip-TA-ruh, “my parents are Albanian”, is a sentence you will say often, and it changes how people talk to you.

Family words

Albanian has separate words for your father’s siblings and your mother’s siblings, which matters a great deal at a family dinner. Get these right and the older generation will notice.

In everyday speech you will hear mami and babi for mum and dad, and the uncle and aunt words are often used as titles: Xhaxhi Agim, Halla Drita. If you are reconnecting with a family language, our heritage learners page explains how lessons are built around exactly this vocabulary.

At the table

Hospitality is not a soft value in Albanian culture. The Kanun, the body of customary law that governed northern Albanian life for centuries, states plainly that “the house of the Albanian belongs to God and the guest”, and gives the guest a status above the host. The modern version of this is a table that keeps filling up and a host who will not take your first “no” seriously.

Guests are usually offered something the moment they sit down: a coffee, a sweet, or a small glass of raki, the grape or plum spirit most families keep at home. It is polite to accept at least a little. Expect “A doni edhe?” more than once; a firm but smiling “jam ngopur” works better than silence. “Ju bëftë mirë” is said before and during the meal, and the reply is simply “faleminderit”. Urdhëroni is one of the most useful words in the language: hosts say it when handing you a plate, waving you through a door, inviting you to sit or answering the phone. The informal singular is urdhëro.

Getting around and shopping

Albania’s currency is the lek (plural lekë). The lek was redenominated at ten to one in 1965, and some older and rural speakers still quote spoken prices in “old lek” with an extra zero, so a 500 lek coffee may be called “pesëmijë” (five thousand). Written prices are always in new lek, so ask to see the price if a spoken figure sounds absurd. Kosovo uses the euro.

Combine “Ku është” with a noun: Ku është plazhi? (the beach) PLA-zhee, Ku është hoteli? ho-TEH-lee. Albanian attaches the definite article to the end of the noun, which is why “hotel” becomes “hoteli” for “the hotel”.

Numbers one to ten

Numbers come up in prices, bus numbers and the ages of every child you are introduced to. “Dy kafe, ju lutem” (two coffees, please) is a complete and useful sentence.

Emergencies

In Albania the general emergency number is 112, and there are direct lines too: 129 for police, 127 for ambulance and 128 for fire.

“Spitali” spee-TA-lee is the hospital and “farmacia” far-ma-TSEE-a the pharmacy.

Four expressions that carry the culture

Some words are worth learning for what they tell you about the people who use them.

Besa is a promise that cannot be broken. It is a central principle of the Kanun and covers loyalty to family and friends, protection of anyone under your roof, and keeping your word at any cost. A well-known proverb runs “Besa e shqiptarit si purteka e arit”: the Albanian’s besa is like a rod of gold. The best-known modern example is the Second World War. About 300 Jews lived in Albania in 1938; more than 1,900 refugees arrived during the war, and Albanians sheltered them so completely that the country ended the war with more Jews than it began with. Mordechai Paldiel, formerly of Yad Vashem, described besa as “the code of honor that requires an Albanian to save the life of anyone seeking refuge”.

Zoti të ruajtë is said to children, to departing guests and to anyone who has just done something kind, by Albanians of every religion and none. Me fat is the standard congratulation for an engagement, a wedding or a new baby. Gëzuar is both a toast and the first word of most holiday greetings: Gëzuar Vitin e Ri (Happy New Year), Gëzuar Bajramin (Happy Eid), Gëzuar Pashkët (Happy Easter).

Formal and informal “you”: ju and ti

Albanian, like French or German, has two words for “you”. Ti is singular and informal; ju is plural, and also the polite singular. The choice changes the verb, which is why several phrases above have two forms:

Use ju with anyone older than you, with shopkeepers, officials and teachers, and with people you are meeting for the first time. Use ti with children, friends, peers in casual settings, and family. The grey area is the family dinner: a partner’s parents will often invite you to use ti fairly quickly, but start with ju and let them tell you. Nobody is ever offended by ju. In many traditional families grandparents are addressed with ju, and switching to ti with them is something to follow, not lead. If you cannot remember the verb forms, “ju” plus the “-ni” ending is the safe default: jeni, quheni, flisni, falni, urdhëroni.

Side note: Gheg forms for Kosovo and northern families

Albanian has two main dialect groups, divided roughly by the Shkumbin river in central Albania: Tosk to the south and Gheg to the north, in Kosovo, northwestern North Macedonia and southeastern Montenegro. Standard Albanian, fixed at the 1972 Orthography Congress in Tirana, is based mainly on Tosk. Everything above is standard and understood everywhere, but if the family you are visiting is from Prishtina, Shkodër or Tetovo, you will hear some differences.

The most audible features are nasal vowels (that circumflex â), shortened words, and the question word qysh instead of si in Kosovo. Gheg also forms the infinitive with “me” plus the verb (me shku, to go), where the standard uses “për të” or the subjunctive. None of this should worry a beginner. Learn the standard, listen for the local forms, and ask; “how do you say that at home?” is a conversation most Albanian grandparents are delighted to have. Our lessons for adults are taught by certified teachers from Albania who are used to students with Kosovar, Macedonian and northern family roots.

Practise this

Pick ten phrases, not seventy-five. A sensible first set is: Përshëndetje, Faleminderit, Ju lutem, Më falni, Si jeni?, Mirë, Ju bëftë mirë, Sa kushton?, Jam ngopur, and Mirupafshim. Say them out loud, with the stress in the right place, until they come without thinking. Then add the family words that match your own family. If you would like someone to check your pronunciation and tell you which phrases you actually need, book a free one-hour assessment. It is a relaxed conversation with a teacher, not a test, and you leave with a plan.