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When listening to recordings of spoken Albanian, I sometimes note what sounds like a retroflex /r/; it's less pronounced than in American English, and seems to occur in syllable codas.

Now Albanian phonology resources say the language does have two /r/s, but they're a flap and a trill like in Spanish (and reflected the same way in writing, as r vs. rr). Neither does the Wikipedia page for the sound list Albanian among the languages that have it.

Is it a dialectal feature? Or am I hearing things?

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    I just read somewhere, I forget where, that the "flap" in Albanian is often actually a retroflex approximant, kind of like in English. So for what it's worth, I don't think you're just hearing things.
    – brass tacks
    Commented Oct 17, 2015 at 17:07

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As an Albanian speaker native to Tirana Albania you are not hearing things. The retroflex is softer than the North American variant. However it does not appear in most dialects. It is specifically a result of the congruence of Tosk Albanian and that of the southern Ghegh dialect spoken natively in Tirana. I dont think I have encountered it in Kosovars whom I've met or southern Tosks.

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