(part 2) Polish Language Pronunciation - Sample Words and Phrases

If you have the ń at the end of a word and not the standard Polish or English 'n' then you must pay attention in the declension system as dzień becomes dnia in the genitive singular. The Polish town, Poznań becomes Poznania in the sense of ja jadę jutro do Poznania. The Polish letter ń can represent nouns of both masculine and feminine gender. When a noun ends in ń and is feminine the genitive is ni.

Merged:Trouble to understand how yo pronounce "ł"

I just can`t get when is ł supposed to be pronounced like W and when like L!!

Help!

£ is always pronounce as "W", unless it looks like L without the slash

yup..

Here you have some tips on how it sounds :)

I have seen the name "Pawel" written two ways:

Pawel and Paweł, why`s that¿? I`m german with polish roots

It is "Paweł" but not everyone has the Polish letters to spell it properly.

was gonna say the way I explained it to British mates was that £ sounds just like a cockney L.....but,being german you may not get that,sorry:)

Was ist das? LOL

Was ist was?? jejejeje

Yes, but only a south-eastern English L when it's before a consonant or at the end of a burst of speech (whatever that's called by proper linguists).

But, as you said, that's not particularly hełpfuł for Pawełek here. Unless he's learning Polish and Cockney/South-eastern English (please don't use that flipping Estuary word).

I hope this post has assisted someone from my neck of the łoods instead.

Just wisten to Jonathon Woss

He's not a Cockney, and he doesn't even pronounce R as a W. He does do the L thing we're discussing though. But the variety of R he uses is quite complicated to describe in detail, but I shall now attempt it. The top front teeth make contact with whatever that bit is called that is behind and below the bottom lip (like the position for the African/Caribbean 'kissing your teeth' thing) whilst the tongue rests in a neutral position.

Go on - let me describe a Polish sound next time. Please!

How about the sound from the rear end? That's a common sound at least

This can ans should be always pronounced as a dark l sound. This new Polish trend of the Polish ł as an English w is strange to me.

This only shows how ancient your idea of the Polish language is.
Dark "L" is vanishing in the Polish language. Right now it is pretty much restricted to some dialects (mostly Eastern) and the older generation.

Happy 90th birthday, Michal.

The dark "L". LOL. That's how they speak in Russia

I know.... it`s weird. I don`t know where I heard a pole say that ł was sometimes pronounced like a simple L. As I`m new with polish I`m confused about my name!.

But if I`m german registred and born in Germany it would have been hard to get a "£" written down on my Birth Certificate since it`s not a letter contained in the german alphabet. :-S :-S

Crap!

Wiele Grüsse

as in window sound .. thats how you pronounce it

Merged:How would you pronounce the name "Lila"?

Hi,

I am trying to figure out; how would a Polish person pronounce the name "Lila"?

In English; Lila would be: "Lie-la"

I want something in Polish that will sound like "Lie-la" how would you spell it in Polish way for "Lie-la"? so that my Polish relatives can pronounce the name as in "Lie-la" not "Lee-la"

Thanks! =)

If you write the word Lila then it would be lee-lu with the stress falling on the double 'ee' there would be no other pronunciation combination possible for this word.

Yaah, Lila in Polish can only bee LEE-lah in Polish, If you want to pronounce it like English try Lajla or maybe Laila (It should be the first, but a lot of people prefer -ai- for foreign names, I don't know why).

Pawelek,

at one time, ł was like the 'dark' l in English ball (but in any position, not just at the end of syllables)

I don't know when people began to pronounce it like English w, but the the tendency to turn the 'hard' l iinto something like [w] or [u] (or [o] or even [v]) has a long history in very many Slavic languages.

Anyway, in Polish for a long time, there were two pronunciations. In everyday life people pronounced it like w, while in formal contexts (or in broadcasting or on the stage) people used the older 'dark' l sound.

But in modern Polish (in Poland) the older pronunciation sounds wrong or too old fashioned and even in the most formal circumstances ł is always pronounced like English w in wait, window by everyone under 50 (and most people older than that).

The old pronunciation lingers on to some extent among Polish speakers left in areas east of the current border, I've heard it from younger speakers from Lithuania, I don't know about in Ukraine or Belarus though.

Because it does sound like an "f" sometimes, and this time Michal is right.
"w Czestochowie" will be pronounced as "fczestochowie".

This is a classical case of desonorization in the Polish language (ubezdzwiecznienie wsteczne)

Merged: Polish pronunciation of Gabriel Ignatius name

My newly born grandson has been named Gabriel Ignatius - how is this pronounced in Polish? Thanks! Basia

Gabriel Ignacy

gah-briel (silent h; aaaah like at the doctor's.) ygnatzi

Thanks again! Now I can tell my son how his son's name is pronounced - his middle name, Ignatius, is named after my father, who was born in Poland. Unfortunately, he died many years ago and I have no relatives left in the United States who speak Polish - I'm glad that I found this forum!!

it's nice, isn't it?

Urszula.

I heard some people once from Zakopane and their '£' sounded deceptively like a Russian 'dark l', f. ex. in 'golodniy' (Polish 'głodny').

Warsovians and Krakovians seem to pronounce it in more of the standard way we foreigners learn it!

Quite often, you will see some unfamiliar text where you know the distinction hasn't been made between L and £, or any of the other letters with things hanging off them or floating above them. What I tend to do is just guess. You have to be right some of the time, surely?

The frequency of usage of the letters L and £ are very close. It's not as if one occurs far more than the other or anything helpful like that. Just take a look at: https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/language/commonly-used-letters-20581/

Someone might say something about softened sounds in Polish if they want to get really technical, but as far as I know, I don't think £ can occur before I.