Polish Language Pronunciation - Example Words and Phrases

ć is short, and ci has an iiiii sound at the end. it's imposible to write the difference in any English letters, as sound ć does not exist in English. I think the best way to hear the sound is to say two words where ć/ci are at the end, like: znać and śmieci. With ć you "cut" the sound, but with ci you make it longer by saying i at the end (Polish i)

But actually the only way to know the difference is to hear it said by a Polish person.
The same with ś/si, like gaś/gasi.

I've never heard anyone claim that 'u' and 'ó' are pronounced differently before. Can anyone else confirm this?

As for "rz" and "ż", if there is a difference it must be very subtle indeed, because to me they really sound exactly the same. Although, I imagine as a Pole you have an extra sensitive ear when it comes to discerning differences between the different ś/sz, c/cz etc sounds, since it's very important in Polish. I guess that if you don't really learn this as a child you will never be able to understand spoken Polish nearly as well as a native speaker, even if you live there for 20 years.

Thank you OsiedleRuda and kioko.


The grammars say that ci, when not followed by a vowel, also has an "i" sound, as if it would be a (sorry for the spelling) "ći" - so there is that difference between znać and śmieci.

But what about ci followed by a vowel: is ciągle pronounced different from a (made-up and again wrongly spelled, sorry) "ćągle"?


Oh, isn't the rz in that place name pronounced sz (end of the word)?


The "problem" is that Wikipedia, as all grammars I have come across, say that ć/ci, ś/si, ź/zi, ż/rz, u/ó are all pairs of identical sounds...

To say that ć/ci, rz/ż, u/ó are different is pure phantasmagoria. Please do not believe people who say this, just take what all grammar books say about it for granted. To write "ci" instead of "ć" is a matter of convention. The pairs rz/ż, u/ó and ch/h were once pronounced differently and still are in certain dialects of Polish, but for the standard Polish the pairs are identical. To prove that, you can inspect the newspapers and books written by the group of the so-called futurists from the years 1920s who wanted to simplify the Polish grammar, so printed the "h" in every word where there was "ch", the "ż" where there should be "rz", the "u" where everyone used to write "ó", and the "ć" where we should write the "ci". The writing was extremely shocking and, of course, was rejected by the rest of the public, nevertheless shows that literary men, well-known writers and poets of the period, could see no difference whatsoever between the pronounciation of letters in the given (and other) pairs.

"U" and "Ó" sound always identical.
"RZ" ussually sounds like "Ż" but for example in word Krzak it sound like kszak.
There is also a difference between sound DŻ and Drz. For example DŻem and DŻuma should be prounaunced like english J in words like James, Jude. DŻ=J

But DRZ it's like d and rz for example Drzewo,Drzazga.
Remember some polish people (especially villagers and not educated) say e.g Name Andrzej like AnDŻej, it is wrong ofcourse.

so how would you tell a difference between words in these pairs if the difference between ć and ci is pure phantasmagoria?

wić - wici
nić - nici
tyć - tyci

These are all cases that I said earlier: "ci", when not followed by a vowel, is not equal to ć but to ć + i.

I remember I was learned different prounouciation in primary school . I had very officious teacher - it wasn't so much time ago ;)

That is what I have seen also.


Exactly as I thought.

That's the point indeed. The "convention" of writing down the sound "ć" comprises in fact these three points:
1. ć when followed by a consonant or at the end of a word: ćpać, choćby
2. ci when followed by a vowel: ciastko, cię, uciecha
3. the particular case occurs when c is followed by the "i" and the "i" is followed by a consonant or by nothing else: nici, tyci, cicho, poczciwy, in which case we may say the sound "ć" is written as "c" (sic!) or we just write the single "i" where we should indeed write the double "i".

If the convention assumed that the writing of the sound "ć" everywhere it is pronounced as such should be the "ć", the above examples would be written as follows:

ćpać, choćby, ćastko, ćę, ućecha, nići, ćicho, poczćiwy,
that is in the way the literary group called "futurists" proposed in the 1920s.

Merged: A couple of pronunciations...Przemyśl,Rzeszów,Tarnawce

Dzień Dobry

What's the pronunciation of the following town names? Am I close?

Przemyśl

Shem-shil (or is that 'y' sounded too?)

Rzeszów

She-show (with the 'o' as in the English word 'town')

Tarnawce

Tah-nah-v-ts

I want to talk to an English, non-Polish speaking person about these places (so I can get away with winging it!) but I'd like to get them right. I'm not yet confident in my ability to pronounce words I've not yet heard spoken - but I'm working on it.

Dziękuję

steve

I'm from Przemyśl!

Przemyśl - Pshem-i ("y" sound)-shl, but the second "sh" is pronunced "ś".
Rzeszów - Shesh-ouf, but the first "sh" is a specific polish sound - "ż".
Tarnawce - Tar-nav-tse pronunced with polish "r".

If you knew how to read, you wouldn't have any problems with these names.

Thanks for that.

Of course, I agree with the reading statement, and it's something I'm working on. At the moment I'm only a week or so into learning Polish, so I have my work cut out just making coherent sounds without reading as such. But, I'm happy I see progress even after so short a time.

Can I ask you what you know about Tarnawce? It's where my father-in-law was born, and my plan to visit there late next year is my reason for learning Polish.

Thanks again for the reply...

steve

Well... I don't know much, Tarnawce is (actually "are" because it's a plural name) a small village near Przemyśl.

EDIT
But you can visit Krasiczyn - there is a beautiful castle!

I'll make a note of the castle... I do like visiting such places.

Is it usual for single towns to be given plural names in Poland?

steve

escapee3


Yes, it is quite common for a village/town to have a plural name. Those names often end with "ce" ending (like "Radoszyce", "Maurzyce", "Gorzkowice") but there are also names which don't follow this rule ("Szczuki", "Surowe"). I can't think of any city with a plural name but most likely there are some.

Also you need to be aware of the gender of the name. "Rzeszów" and "Przemyśl" are names of masculine gender (to be more precise - 'inanimate masculine', there are 3 subtypes of masculine in Polish) while "Warszawa" is feminine and "Legionowo" or "Piaseczno" are neuter.

Interesting, jakubzurawski, thank you. The more one delves into Polish, the more there is to learn.

steve

Yope, that's right.


Katowice, Skierniewice, Dąbki!

Now the funny ones - Kozie Wólki and Wielkie Oczy (both of them DO exist).

No. Both ć and cz are allophones in English, represented by ch. An allophone is one of two or more different sounds that stand for the same sound. For example, the h in hippy is different to the h in hop, but we don't hear them as different sounds. This is probably analogous to the h and ch (regardless of which spelling is used) in Polish, where the ch in troche isn't pronounced quite the same as the ch in chceć. They are still heard as the same sound.

To me and possibly many English speakers, when Polish people pronounce ch with a cz sound, it sounds like the tongue further back on the palate than it should be.

It is merely a spelling convention that ci appears before a vowel rather than ć as found before consonants and in final position in a word. Spelling would be so much simpler if we weren't all using an alphabet designed for Latin to describe the sounds of English with all its many vowel sounds and Polish with its myriad consonants.

"Ć" mowimy cicho
"CI" mowimy z glosniejszm "I"

youtube.com/user/magauchsein#p/u/77/aJI6JDAxUd4

"ć" and "ci" are definitely not the same. Could you imagine the Monty Python saying "We are the knights who say ń " ?

Merged: Pronunciation of Marysienka/appropriate given name?

How do you pronounce Marysienka and Marysieńka, and could it be appropriate to use this as a given name for a baby in the U.S.?

it is pronounced like Marishenka(h) - sure it can be a given name - but why don't you just call her Mary (Marysieńka is diminutive of Marysia which is diminutive of Maria which is Mary in Polish)

Thank you for the info :) We considered Maria, but we would like the name to very clearly sound Polish and many people we've talked to say they think of Mexican heritage first when they hear "Maria." Plus, our last name is not Polish, so that increases the confusion of a Polish sounding name.

Would the syllables be: /Mar-ee-shen-ka/ or /Ma-rish-en-ka/?

in Polish it is actually divided into Ma-ry-sień-ka (Ma-ri-shen-ka) but maybe it is more difficult to pronounce in English
actually in your place I would call the child just Marysia - I think it sounds Polish enough and shortness helps in case of names - you might consider what kind of spelling to use too (Polish or phonetical English) - in the end the decision is up to you

Thank You :)

It's pronounced Ag-nyesh-ka