Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases

I'm an American who studied German in high school and college, and was shocked, after studying so much German vocabulary, that the Germans say "das Baby" and pronounce it as in English! :-)

Yeah sad, too much Hollywood probably.

mow-gleesh-mih
mow-gwish-mih

YES! That was the one! Thanks again.

Do not say "mow", say just "mo".
"mo-gleesh-mih" - when you talk to guys or group of people (and you're one of them)
"mo-gwish-mih" - when you talk to girls (and you're one of them)

So it should be pronounced with a sz not rz. so- it would technically be "tzy"??? i think i understand now

Ha ha, i avoided the petrol pump number trzy for years, always bought two of four packets of cigarettes etc as the prenounciation gave me real issues, now i think ive got it down pretty good, no weird looks when i say it. My advice is practice makes perfect well as near to perfect as possible for us. Dont try to hard relax and mimic a native speaker as well as possible. If you think about saying it too much or try to hard youre gonna cock it up.

after plosives rz becomes simply sh.
hence, there is no difference between przejście and pszenica.
does this site use IPA fonts? it would be a lot easier...

Following only the voiceless plosives, however. The voiced plosives leave rz unaffected: grzęda, drzewo or brzeg are pronounced: gżęda, dżewo, bżek.

yup.
i thought i put that there too.
sorry, it is important.

i dunno but i know a pole at my school who is called maciej/maciek and people call him man-check i call him machay or people just call him magic like sum1 else said lol.

Merged: A bit of pronunciation help please.....Motylku/Daj Mi Buzi

Hello. My Polish is awful (let alone my English - thank you crappy American schools). However, growing up with Polish grandparents, I was used to the terms of "Misiu" and the like. I was wondering, could anyone make sure these translations are correct for me and tell me how to pronounce them phonetically (I want to make sure I get them right!)

Examples -
Misiu - Teddybear (Me-Shoe)
Jestes piekna - You're beautiful (Yes-tes Pee-ek-na)

What I would like -
Motylku - Butterfly
Daj Mi Buzi - Give me a kiss (Daj mi buji?)
Nigdy nie widzałem tackich pięknych oczy - I have never seen such beautiful eyes
chodź do łóżka - Come to bed

search the forums. there are links to sites here, that you can listen to the correct pronunciations of polish words you type in.

Could you perhaps show me one of these sites? I've searched through the forum and can't find one that is up and running?

say.expressivo.com/?lang=en

edit:


Daj mi całusa or pocałuj mnie (kiss me)


oczu not oczy


to co (or czego) chciałbym

Nigdy nie widziałem takich pięknych oczu

Many thanks!

You need to spell them properly. "Lodz" is completely incorrect, and sounds completely different to "£ódź".

Ę - Intensely difficult to describe via text. If you say it as "en" you will be understood, though it's apparently less correct. The correct form is like saying "en", but without letting your tongue touch the top of your mouth on the "n" sound. Note: if you say it "en" (which most do), you pronounce it as a normal "e" if it's at the end of a word. Like so: Będę = "Bende".

Ó - As in "U". "Dunno".

Ą - English O, like "Dunno".

£ - English "W".

Ż - Hard to say. Kind of like the "g" in "Beige", but MUCH lighter.

- - Impossible to say via text. It is similar to "Ż", but Polish people find the difference huge, so you need to learn from a Polish person how to say it.

Ń - Honestly, this letter is used so rarely that it doesn't even matter. It sounds the same as a normal "N" to me, so that's how I say it.

i thought this accent changed the vowel sound in front of it ? Gdańsk, Państwo, Amerykańska?

Then you are saying it wrong. We Poles know how to use it.


If it didn't matter, it wouldn't exist. Shame we can't say that about most of your posts on here.


It affects the sound of the "accented" letter more, really, but whereas you know there is an important difference, Mr. P.C. Leftie doesn't think this "matters" :D

Merged: Ciumek pronunciation

Is ,Ciumek' pronounced ,chew-mik'?

Would this be an appropriate term to call my fiance [male] as a pet name?

"chew-mek" may be better, "mek" rhyming with "trek" or "deck".

Difficult to describe. But something like "tchew-mek".


That's so personal and intime that we can't give him pet-name. But it's more common to give girls pet-names in Polish.

"Chew-Mek" is pretty much accurate.

Pio, SzwedzPolsce, and Matowy, thank you very much for your answers.


I thought ,Ci' dropped the ,tch' sound, thank you for the correction.

My fiance's name is Eliasz, so I was trying to think of a cute Polish pet-name for him. But if it's not common for men to have pet-names, I won't try one. =)

"Ci" have t-sound. But Polish "ch" drops the t-sound, and this is a very common combination.


You can make a normal diminutive of it, that sounds a little "cuter". But I am not sure how to make diminutive of Eliasz.

Hi
How do you pronunce this name in English: Iesa. Thank you!

I've never heard this name. But probably pronounced like "Ajesa".

Merged: ć versus ci: pronunciation

Everywhere I read that ć and ci are just different ways to write the same sound according to orthographic rules, but they are pronounced absolutely the same (like ó - u; ż - rz).

But a couple of Polish people tell me that one of them is softer than the other.

So where is the truth?

P.s. No, I am *not* asking about ć/ci vs. cz; I also *do* know when to write ć and when ci instead.

ó and u are indeed very similar, but even then there is a slight difference between the sound, say, u mamy and Halinów, but it is very, very subtle.

I disagree with ż and rz sounding exactly the same, though - Żoliborz (a Warsaw district) combines both sounds, but the ż sounds more like it's made with the lips, whereas the rz sound is made more with the tongue. I'm not a linguist, so I can't tell you exactly why this is different, but I'm sure a Wikipedia search would explain why.

Likewise, with ć and ci - the sounds are different according to where they are placed in the word - e.g. pozdrawiać sounds more like "pozdrawiactz", but cipa (hehe) sounds just like it is spelled - ci. Whereas in cię it sounds more like "cije". If that makes any sense ;)

The sounds are exceedingly similar, but a native speaker (or lifetime bilingual speaker such as myself) will tell the difference. I'm sorry I can't explain it better.