Much has been written about the Albanian community living in Germany and Switzerland for three generations, but little research has been done on this topic. Little is known about their language situation, even though they represent one of the largest migrant groups in Switzerland. This article provides insights into the language competence of three generations (G1–G3). Approximately twenty people per generation and country (n=120) were asked how they assess their oral and written language competence. The data collected by means of questionnaires and analysed by contrast show that the spoken dialect of origin shapes the everyday life of respondents in Germany and Switzerland and that they rate their oral language competence in dialect and in standard higher than their written competence while the distance between oral and written competence is more pronounced in G3 of both countries than in G2 and G1. As expected, the data values of G1s who have been linguistically socialised in their country of origin are higher than those of G2s and G3s who grew up in Germany and Switzerland. The respondents in Germany’s G2 and G3 rate their oral competence in Standard Albanian significantly higher than the Swiss G2 and G3. This is surprising because it was assumed that the range of Albanian on offer in Switzerland is greater than in Germany and that Swiss respondents in G2 and G3 have better access to standard Albanian.