Are there "Spelling Bee" competitions in Poland? (ie. Polish version of USA's "Scripps National Spelling Bee")

The only spelling bees I've seen are in Anglophone countries, mainly USA & Canada. Any such competition in Poland? (or other European countries?)

Polish spelling is too consistent to make spelling bees very interesting. There is something called dyktando (roughly: dictation) of a text with a bunch of uncommon words that utilize the spelling ambiguities that do exist. A major part of dyktando however is also related to things like punctuation, capitalization and word division.

Here's a video with the text being read whole (starting at 30 seconds) which lasts until 1.40 mark or so when she asks "Gotowi?" (are you all ready?)

Then the guy reads it sentence by sentence a few times...

Yes I took a brief glance at Dyktando 2018 on youtube. From what I saw, dytando isn't a competition between participants? (where participants are eliminated one-by-one, and then the winner is awarded medal/trophy)? I suppose it's more of a non-competition written exam? Maybe Poland could do a Scripps-like competition using very long & rarely-used Polish words, or words of foreign origins?

It's not a one by one elimination but there are winners

krakow.pl/aktualnosci/228273,34,komunikat,v_dyktando_krakowskie__zwyciezca_popelnil_tylko_dwa_bledy.html


Not enough foreign words and not enough rarely used words that are spelled weirdly... it would end up in multiple ties too soon.

Apart from the commonly known "Chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Szczebrzeszynie", here is another one fairly difficult to pronounce:

I cóż, że ze Szwecji ...

[I've never had difficulty to quickly pronounce the former and yet I must be rather slow in pronouncing the latter which seems to be easier ...]

the one that always defeated me was "stół z powyłamywanymi nogami"

France though, as most of you all probably already know, used to have La Dictee Nationale, "hosted" by the one and only Bernard Pivot (Bouillion de la culture, L'apostrophe along with other renowned TV programs), and this was said to be tougher than almost any such spelling bees here in the States:-) Real ball busters, the French when it comes to their language.

Trust the Poles are the same:-) Lord knows, the Germans have slacked off in this regard, perhaps not the English as much.

I too always figured that spelling bees were more or less typical of the US alone, if only because so many Americans, even educated Americans, confess to being lousy spellersLOL

When I lived in Spain once, I got a bit of a tongue lashing from the operator when I did the equivalent of a "Smythe", S - M - Y - T - H - E to which the telephone receptionist snapped in Spanish, "Sir, excuse me! I know how to write my own language!!!"

My cross-cultural gaff/goof was to assume that other nationalities are as orthographically challenged as we are. Ought to have realized that only English is the chaotic spelling nightmare which it is, other languages generally no where nearly as much.

Thank you for the link. I like how Dyktando's participants are various age groups, unlike Scripps (max. age 14). Whenever I hear spoken Polish language, I often have the most difficulties in distinguishing between all these spoken sounds: "cz vs. ć" / "sz vs. ś" / "rz or ż vs. ź" (all those except when they're before letters i and y), "ch vs. h" (except middle and/or end of word), "di + vowel" vs. "dj + vowel", "ą vs. o" (but only when both are before letters l and ł), "e vs. ę" (when both are before l and ł, and also when both are at end of word), "n vs. ń" before consonants (except before cz and sk), "(i)ó vs. (i)u" (except nonexistents "ó + vowel" and nonexistent last-letter ó), and "vowel + u" vs. "vowel + ł " (except nonexistents ąu, ęu, and óu). All those issues I listed would be my Achilles' Heels in Polish speak-and-spell examinations LOL. My only saving graces would be that I'm not as worried about certain individual or double consonants when they're between vowels, specifically letters b, c (except ci), d (including dz, but except dzi), f, g, j, k, n, p, r, s (except si), t, w, and z (except zi), and not worried about letters l, m, and r (except rz) anywhere in a word...and also not so worried about letters a and i at beginning or end of word, " i + consonant" (anywhere in word), and "consonant + y" at end of word

As an erstwhile Polish beginner, my teacher did practically little else for at least the first three to five lessons other than dictations followed by listening comp., subsequently more dictations until I nearly gave up!!

Bully for Pani Jola. Thanks to her not always so gentle insistence, I learned before not too long to distinguish words with "o" + kreska and a "u", between a "s" + kreska and "sz", "between "drz" vs. "z"+ kropka, and so forth.

Pani Jolu, bless you wherever you are:-)

My favourite

Żaba warzy żuru gar,
a pod garem drżący żar.

żur wrze w garze,
gar na żarze,
to się skończy na pożarze!

Aż żółw zrzęda rzecze szczerze:
-Niech się żaba żaru strzeże!

Smaży żaba smardzów wór,
w garze wrze gorący żur.

żółwik żabę żerdzią dźga:
-Niechże żaba żuru da!

żółw zażera wrzący żur,
żaba żuje smardzów wór.

Pusto w garze,
żółw się maże,
już nie zrzędzi o pożarze:

-Postaw, żabo, gar na żar.
Zróbże jeszcze żuru gar!

żaba warzy żuru gar,
a pod garem drżący żar.

żur wrze w garze,
gar na żarze,
to się skończy na pożarze..

Good both for pronounciation and spelling.

Poor froggy:-)

Nice post, kaprys! The Brzechwa tongue twister though featuring the town of Szczezbrzyn still has yours beatLOL

My main issues with distinguishing between spoken "cz vs. ć" / "dż vs. dź" / "sz vs. ś" / "rz or ż vs. ź" is when they're all pronounced before consonants (also when they're pronounced in last-letter position), and when they're pronounced before most vowels. I have no difficulties distinguishing which of those is pronounced before vowel y, and which of those is pronounced before "i + consonant" or pronounced before vowel i in last-letter position. My biggest difficulties are distinguishing between spoken rz and ż (which to my knowledge, are both pronounced identically...although rare exceptions where rz pronounced as rolled r before z, or pronounced as rolled r before ź if spelled rzi), especially difficult for me to distinguish between spoken rz and ż when they're pronounced in first-letter position + vowel, in last-letter position after vowel, and between vowels. I might be able to distinguish between spoken drz and dż, as I've learned that drz is supposed to be pronounced as separate d before rz. I also learned that dzi/dź/dż is sometimes pronounced as separate d before ź/ż, mainly due to prefixes nad-, od-, pod-, and przed- (if prefixed onto words beginning with zi/ź/ż, mostly onto infinitives including adjectives/adverbs/nouns derived from those infinitives)...and am also aware that there are also prefixes na-, o-, po-, prze- prefixed onto words beginning with dzi/dź/dż. Plus dż in last-consonant position possibly pronounced as separate d, due to suffixes -ż and -że

I couldn't agree with you more! Often to non-Polish speakers, the distinction is ever so slight, and in transcribing same, it can be almost impossible.

From what I've (self-) learned, cz/dż/rz/ż/sz are pronounced in a stronger, more "rounded lips" manner...and ć/dź/ś/ź are pronounced in a weaker, more "stretched lips" manner. For example, in the English word "Church", the cz pronunciation would be similar to the 1st Ch, and the ć pronunciation would be similar the last ch...The English word "Judge", the dż similar to the J and the dź similar to the dge...The English word "Shush", the sz similar to the 1st Sh and the ś similar to the last sh...The French word "Bonjour" and English word "Beige", the rz/ż similar to the j and the ź similar to the ge. Another difficulty for me is when they're side-by-side with consonants other than j, l, ł, m, n/ń/ni, and rolled r (because of the Polish voicing/devoicing of consonant clusters...would also be an Achilles' Heel for me in Polish speak-and-spell examinations LOL)

and the tongue is more pointed (some, but not all, speakers pull it back to towards the roof of the mouth)


and the tongue is flatter

However I've yet to encounter any Polish "palatals" quite so palatalized as in, for example Russian.