The

Polish

alphabet

The Polish alphabet has 32 letters, nine of which are unique. Considering that some of them combine to form seven different digraphs and even one trigraph, this adds up to a total of 17 unfamiliar symbols you‘ll unfortunately have to learn by heart. But once you know all of them, you’ll easily be able to pronounce any Polish word, guaranteed.

Latin

background The Polish language has always had

issues with the Latin alphabet. Ever

since the 12th century, when the language first started to be written down in the Latin script, scribes were struggling to fit the mind-boggling abundance of Slavic phonology (estimated at that time to comprise of 12 vowels and 33 consonants) into the 23 letters of the Latin alphabet.

The Polish alphabet has

17 letters and letter

combinations

unknown to English

speakers

Let's start

with something

Non-threatening

False

Friends

Before we go into detail about letters unique to the Polish alphabet, we must make one thing clear:

some Polish letters are impostors! For example...

Example: The word co ,

pronounced tso

meaning what

The letter C,

unless followed

by the letter i ,

is pronounced ts

(as in tsunami)

never k like in

the word cat

Example: Wietnam

(pronounced

like in English)

The letter W is

always pronounced

v like van, so forget

the weird way

English-speakers

pronounce their w

Example: Lojalny

pronounced

lo-yal-neh ,

meaning loyal

Another false

friend – J in Polish

is pronounced y,

like the y sound

in yeti

Ogonki, kreski, kropki...

Polish

Diacritics

Ogonek means little tail and is responsible for nasalising two vowel sounds – ą and ę Kreska (acute accent)

means either palatalization,

as in ś and ć, or turns

o into u Kropka (overdot) is only

used with ż The slash across letters is

used only with ł

Example: This letter is most

often found in

infinitive verbs

like pić ( to drink ),

spać ( to sleep ),

wstać ( to get up )

The letter Ć

is pronounced

like ch in China,

except softer

Example: Ślub , śpiew

meaning

respectively

wedding , singing

The letter Ś

is pronounced

like sh in shore

only much softer

Example: Famous director

Roman Polański ,

even though

foreign media

often drop the ń

Ń is a palatalized n,

a sound close to the

Spanish ñ, but youll

find it also in onion

Example: The surname

Woźniak

Ź has no English

equivalent. It is very

similar to Ż, except

softer



The differentiation

between soft and

hard consonants is

one of the hardest

features to conquer,

but fortunately people

will still understand

you even if you can’t

quite pull it off

Example: The common Polish

surname Zieliński

is pronounced

zhel-een’skee ,

with the ź sound

at the beginning

Please note that the

four above-mentioned

phonemes (ć, ś, ź and ń)

have an alternative

notation



Before a vowel they

are written as ci, si,

zi, ni, but they sound

the same

Example: Król

meaning

king

Ó is pronounced

oo as in moon



This means it's

pronounced just

the same as

the Polish u

Example: Żyrafa

meaning

giraffe

Ż is pronounced

exactly like the

s in measure

Example: Polish doughnuts, pączki , have

recently become

trendy in the

Western world,

where they are

sometimes

anglicised as ponchki

Ą is one of the two

nasal sounds

preserved in Polish



It sounds more

or less like on

in wrong

Example: Dziękuję is

the Polish

word for

thank you

At the end of a word,

Ę is almost inaudible



In the middle of

a word, it sounds like

in in bin

Example: Forget the English

pronunciation

of Wałęsa , and

try to say it

the Polish way!

The mysterious Ł

with a stroke is

pronounced like

w in wool

Digraphs

and

Trigraphs

Even though these

agglomerations

of consonants may look

frightening, they all

represent a single sound,

many of which exist

in English.

Example: You can use CZ

to greet Polish

acquaintances:

cześć means

hello !

CZ is pronounced

like ch in change

Example: Szal is a scarf

or shawl .

Proszę means please

SZ is pronounced

like sh in shape

Example: Rzecz ( thing ),

Rzeczpospolita

( republic ) – used as another

word for

Poland

Just like ż, RZ is

pronounced like

s in measure

Example: Dzban

( water pitcher )

DZ sounds close

to ts, but sounds

more like the end

of heads

Example: Dżem

(meaning jam – the sweet fruit spread kind, not the traffic kind)

DŻ is pronounced

like g in gel

Example: Dźwig ( lift )

or

dźwięk ( sound )

DŹ – trying to

say d+ź should

do the trick

here.

Example: In Polish, cholera is both a disease

and a popular

curse word!

CH is pronounced

just like h

Example: Dziewczyna

( girl )

Polish has also

one trigraph: DZI

is pronounced

like dź

Find out

more about

the Polish

language

on culture.pl

Culture.pl is the biggest and most comprehensive online source of knowledge about Polish culture. It boasts a wealth of articles, artist bios, reviews, essays, synopses, videos and more. For over a decade now, the Culture.pl website has been operated by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute – a national institution working to strengthen Poland's cultural impact and the international reputation of its artists. http://culture.pl/en/ Credits

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