The Balkan Language Initiative (BLI) program in N. Macedonia

The Balkan Language Initiative (BLI) program offers an eight-week long summer and one or two semesters long intensive, highly individualized language instruction.

Participants learn Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and Serbian in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Through homestays, conversation partners, in-class instruction and a wide range of extracurricular activities, participants enjoy and unprecedented opportunity to immerse themselves in daily local life.

BLI program students Andrew Mairs and Benjamin Hiatt arrived in N. Macedonia 3 weeks ago and started their 9-month long journey. Both students live with local host families, they are actively immersing themselves into the culture with high dedication to the language acquisition and socializing with the locals. BLI students are expanding their knowledge and experience with weekly planned cultural and extracurricular activities and are already actively using the Macedonian language in daily life.