How would albanian sound to a non-ethnic?

In the "Languages I've heard" I saw more people who posted they have heard albanian. Apparently they dont have an opinion about its sound, or what?

I have listened to Albanian songs, especially by Merita Halili. While singing it's soft and sounds like slavic. However I haven't heard a long dialogue in Albanian. I had 2 Albanian friends and they spoke Turkish very well but sometimes they pronounced some words just like in Roumelian Turkish.

Here in Turkey I had chance to hear what like Albanian is. It is a language softer than Yugo-Slavic languages, but harder than French. It is between Slavic and French in my opinion. When I heard native Albanian speakers I felt that they combined Serbo-Croatian and French somehow. Of course t's not true. But Albanian is pretty lovely. I like it. The only one which I love more is Turkish. Because I speak and understand it. It's my mother tongue.

Edited by Tangriberdi - 17-Aug-2006 at 14:29

Originally posted by vulkan02 If you seen the movie "Inside Man" there is a part where the bank robbers play tapes of Enver Hoxha in order to confuse the police. They play this aloud and it seems no one in New York knows how Albanian sounds like but some of them make bad guesses such as Bulgarian and Armenian. Then they get a hooker or something (which by the way speaks with a heavy slavic accent) and she tells them that its Albanian. I doubt most people would know how it sounds like and the fact that its an isolated Indo-European language explains it.

I loved that scene! As soon as the American construction guy said it was Albanian, I thought - oh God, they're going to bring in some folk dancer to decipher it.

I was praying for a good Balkan stereotype, and I got one. This hot woman with a skin-tight green dress walks into the booth, hands over a little gift bag.

"What's this?"
"Parking tickets, you'll take care of it?"
"You can't smoke in here..."
""

I loved it. I was so pleased that they didn't put a folk dancer. I love when international movies make fun of us in the same ways we do.

I heard people speaking Albanian in Macedonia.It looks like soft language and i think how Albanians pronounce "r" is very funny.I heard the word "ari" which means bee in Turkish.It was completely different with Turkish "ari".Although i though Albanians are tough people usually,their language is soft.I have a friend called "Halil" from Tirana.He speaks Turkish with a very soft accent.And  we usually laugh him when he pronounces "r".He says "kardeşim"in a very funny way.No offense to any albanian but usually when boys speak like him,people call them "sissies" or "gays" here.Lastly i wanna say that Albanian isnt like any other language that i have heard before

If you seen the movie "Inside Man" there is a part where the bank robbers play tapes of Enver Hoxha in order to confuse the police. They play this aloud and it seems no one in New York knows how Albanian sounds like but some of them make bad guesses such as Bulgarian and Armenian. Then they get a hooker or something (which by the way speaks with a heavy slavic accent) and she tells them that its Albanian. I doubt most people would know how it sounds like and the fact that its an isolated Indo-European language explains it.