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

It can:

£i łyl rak ju.

I don't mind being proven wrong - it keeps life interesting.

* sigh *

A friend of mine living in Germany has changed name to PAWEU...

"£" has the sound of W in "water" unless it is between two consonants, as in jabłko.
£ódź sounds like "wootch".
Wisła sounds like "vees-waa".
£ is a hard consonant. L is a soft consonant.
£ does not appear before i, and L does not appear before y.

Merged: Pronunciation of ę at the end of words..

Hi everyone im new here!! I'm trying to learn Polish as i think its a beautiful language and i have lots of Polish friends (and a lovely Polish boyfriend). So my very first question.... :-D

i notice differences in pronunciation of -ę all the time... For example most often when i hear 'się' it has that nasal sound.. but other times.. like if someone says 'naprawdę' the nasal sound is not pronounced so much and it just sounds like a normal '-e' at the end. Another example is 'Kocham Cię' which to me, always sounds like the normal '-e' sound at the end of Cię.. I think i read something before about not making it sound so nasal when its at the end of the word but then what about się??

Am i imagining this?? And does it sound very bad to native Polish speakers if someone doesn't pronounce it properly?

You're not.
"ę" sounds like e, en, em depending on the context.

There was a thread about Polish nasals here.

edit: found it:

https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/language/abecadlo-alphabet-15142/

Oops I didn't see that thread :) Dziękuje za pomoc ;-)

I asked this question myself https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/language/final-13424/ about 7 mths ago, when I first started , trying to learn Polish. I could hear lots of polish people saying the final "e" as e, and others saying it as "en". I can still hear the two different ending every day, in polish learning courses etc.

A polish person told me that people in the north and south of Poland tend to say it as a ordinary "e", whilst people in central Poland tend to say it as "en".I wonder if anyone else can confirm this?

I went to Southern Poland and most people there pronounced the nasal sound at the end of the word which is probably why I do too but I am not sure if it depends on geography or not

Jenni - When 'ę' at the end of a word, you can easily say it as normal e. Maybe 'się' is an exception, but you can say it without 'ę' too. Sometimes I don't know how to write some word ('e' or 'ę' at the ending), because everebody say it as normal 'e' :)


Often people use a instead of ą, e instead of ę, l instead of ł, z instead of ż, o instead of ó, when typing on keyboard. It is beacause they are too lazy to use alt button :)

Thanks Kamil_pl :-) yes the się thing was what was really confusing me.. now its all cleared up though dzięki :-)

i dont see much of ą at the ends of words... i wonder if there is some rule like that for pronunciation about ą.. like where ą changes to a normal 'a' sound..... i know są keeps the nasal sound... actually come to think of it, did i just use the word 'rule' a minute ago?? lol :-) Polish is a naughty language!! It does not always follow the rules!!!!! ;) It seems like Irish - if there is a rule, there are more exceptions than cases that actually follow the rule!

NEVER as "a"


But it does. Here are the rules for pronouncing ą:

[ą] as the last sound of a word
[om] before [ b], [b'], [p], [p'] example: dąb [d o m p]
[on] before [d], [t], [dz], [c], [dż], [cz] example: kąt [k o n t]
[oń] before [dź], [ć] example: rżnąć [r ż n o ń ć]
[oŋ] before [g], [g'], [k], [k'] example: bąk [b o ŋ k]
[o] before [ł], [l] example: wziął [w ź o ł]

Oh thanks so much z_darius! :-) That was such a great help!! I totally get it now :-D

what sound is the "oŋ" ? please.

"ŋ" is like "n" before -g/-k in English (thing, think etc.)
The "o" before "ŋ" is just a normal Polish "o"
So the Polish "bąk" is probably pronounced somewhere between the English "bonk" and "bunk".
I hope I was correct, but I can't guarantee.

Or like the French 'banque'


Neither can I, but can you imagine anyone demanding their money back?

No, Polish "ą" is a nasal "o", not nasal "a" (no such thing as nasal "a" in official Polish, although for example "bank" has some "nasal lfavour" and the word "włączać" is often mispronounced with a slightly nasal "a" instead of "o", so włanczać instead of włonczać, which is annoying)

You would certainly never pronounce final Polish ę as an 'en' sound but this does indeed ocurre in the middle of words.

My point was Michal, that in various learning audio software, some teachers say en at the end of a word, and some don't...I was wondering if it was a region thing?

Krzysztof once said also.....that it could be a bit like...if you talk the queens English or not.

I thought the French nasals a and o sounded the same - more like an o than an a.
Turns out I was wrong.

French nasals:
a - en face, anglais, examen
o - on y va, onze, Lyon
e - fin, cinq, putain, quinze (I'm not sure about the pronounciation of "quinze")
u - Verdun, un

I just thought that in French, en, an and on sounded the same, in and ain were another sound and un was out there on its own.

I wasn't trying to misinform anyone.


Cans. (As far as I'm concerned anyway).

You could have chosen something else ;P


It's okay, as in "cinq"...


Yeah "Cans" or "Canz" (without the "n" sound)

Honestly? Nothing else with "-ain" came to my dirty mind, it's been a while (ten years) since I stopped learning French, so only the important words stayed in memory :)

"Faim" -> hunger
"Train" -> train (difficult one, i know..)
"Nain" -> dwarf
...


Haha, important ;)

Merged:How to pronounce "Jozef Kosacki"?

Hi, can someone please help me with the pronunciation of the name Jozef Kosacki ?
I know he saved thousands of lives in WW2 with his invention of the mine detector.

Many thanks: Dutch

Jozef Stansilaw Kozacki is his full name. I'm not really sure how to pronounce it properly though...sorry.

Józef -> [yoo-zeff]
Kozacki -> [koh-zats-kee]

:)

Merged: Questions on pronunciation! "k","p", "rz"

Hi,I'm a beginner having been studying Polish for only 1 week.
Here are my questions on Polish Pronunciation:
1. Are "k","p" and "t" pronounced as those in German(aspirated) or in French(unaspirated)? For eg. in "tak","pani","jestem". I've listened to the songs and some teaching materials and I am confused because some people pronouce these letters with aspiration while some do not.

2. When is "rz" pronouce separately? It's written in the text book that the pronunciation of "rz" is like "j" in French. But when I saw the film "katyn", I heard the name "Jerzy" was pronounced as /jerzi/ and "rz" was pronouced separately. So is there some regularity?

3.How to pronouce "budzić" ? I think "dz" should be softened.But when I listen to the song "budzić Świat" of Dna i Gal, I find they pronouce "dz" as /dz/ without softening it. So is it accent?

Dziękuję!

-


Unaspirated.


Only in the name Tarzan.


As far as I know, the dzi softening rule has no exceptions.


Perhaps I am wrong. Or you might be right. Or they might be... I don't know!