Who still speaks pidigin Polish after many years in the country?

With ć, I think it's easiest simply to treat it like cz. It's not correct of course, but I don't think it really affects the intelligibility of the word in question, especially as ć is usually word-final.

Would be interesting to examine the speech of those who acquired Polish as a second language from a non-Slavic country to see if anyone is able to produce ć consistently.

Isn't accurate too. It sounds like"czje". It's hard to find an adequate sound in English.

You're the big e-gadgetarian. I' m sure YouTube must have some sites showing native speakers pronouncing different Polish sounds.

It's because you don't speak Polish (regardless of the lie you wrote in your profile) and can hardly even distinguish "cz" sound from "ci/ć" sound. Simple example: "Cze" and "Cię".

I can hear them, but reproducing the difference accurately and consistently is an issue. It's the whole fluency/accuracy debate, but I'm of the opinion that it's not something that even native speakers are concerned about in speech. Of course, getting it wrong in writing is a far worse crime.


Of course, of course. Keep telling yourself that, durny.

Many ex-pats speak only broken language even after longer than 22 years abroad! Conversely, just think of the countless Polish ex-pats in much of Greenpoint, Maspeth etc. who've lived much of their adult lives in the States, yet often speak either mangled English to no English at all:-)

lol

Yes that's the problem. We really don't have those distinctions in English phonetics. One of the things my husband has always emphasised to me and still corrects me on, is the difference between 'cz' and 'ci' and 'sz' and 'si' whereas in English there's really only 'ch' and 'sh'. I suppose if you exaggerate the shapes you make with the mouth when saying them, I'd say that starting with the lips in a neutral position, with 'cz' you bring the lips forward into a pouting motion and with 'ci' you draw the lips back.

You what? Rotfl

All 3 lefty heroes: delph, jon and Harold speak terrible Polish given the time they spent in Poland. I don't know who is the worst but does that matter? They spent most of their time online using English anyway.

but grać (to play) vs gracz (player)....

I can usually pronounce them clearly enough but I don't hear the difference (but minimal pairs are relatively rare so that doesn't much affect overall comprehension).

What's frustrating was hearing a new word and then asking a Polish person which it was ś or sz The answer would usually be śśśśśśśś or szszszsz which was basically no help at all.

You probably have some sort of hearing impairment.

Yes, it's called non-Polish ears. I knew a phonetician (superstar in the field) who said that as far as they could tell no non-Polish native speakers really hear the difference consistently.

There are simply limits regarding how much learners can really learn to hear differences that aren't made in their native language and the distinctions between ś, ć, ź, dź vs sz, cz, ż and dż is one of them for most second language learners of Polish.

Possibly the same hearing impairment that causes most Polish people to pronounce 'ship' as 'sheep'?

Or distinguish men and man (or hear the final consonants in the American pronuncitions of words like stop and stock)

I'd say that it is not the lips that matter in correctly pronouncing one and the other. It is the tongue which is chiefly responsible for the producing the sounds ś/ci and cz correctly.

For producing the former it is the tip part of the tongue which is mainly at work while for the latter the sides of the tongue are engaged mostly and the tip only slightly. Plus a different place of articulation for both sounds.

Cross-sections of the mouth cavity showing the position of the tongue would be of much help, I believe. A film exposing the movement of the tongue in the mouth cavity would be even better. Such short films helped me to learn the difference in pronounciation between certain English vowels and thus overcome:

Kasia Kasza ;)


Ahahahahah. Who was that? Polish speaker Delph? Muahahaha. This made my day. Thanks.

Proszę prosię.

Apart from the pettiness between certain members, this has turned out to be quite a good thread for those of us with a basic Polish knowledge. Good pronunciation tips all over the shop. That being said, can you ever expect someone who learned the language as a foreigner to be 100% fluent with perfect pronunciation? It's a bit snobby to sit there and say that expats can't tell the difference between "ci" and "cz". There is a difference, I can hear it (and I'm not even trying to claim fluency or even good Polish), but using it day to day, it's not a natural way to speak.

A good point was made with Polish people speaking English and certain things are mispronounced regularly, no matter how much you study or immerse yourself, there will be a natural way to pronounce things and that will prevent consistency. It's not something to be mocked, I think it's charming and it gives people a bit more character.

'szyp' versus 'szip' ?lol

@Ironside
Can't believe English speakers consider that problematic to Poles lol

Poles typically have similar issues with long vs.short vowels in English, much as the average native Anglophone constantly trips over Polish consonant clusters. Tongue twisters in either language pose analogous degrees of often insurmountable difficulty:-)

**** vs peace/piece
big vs. beak

etc.

You can't even insult in Polish lol. If you could speak Polish you'd know that you can't use an adjective "durny" in this case but rather a noun "dureń" in locative case which is "durniu". Another proof of you lying about your ability to speak Polish.

Maf's no more lying about his ability to speak Polish than you are about your ability to speak English:-)

@Lyzko
Never claimed and there's nothing in my profile tab saying I do as opposite to his and yours for that matter.

calling someone durniu is an example of the vocative (wołacz) not locative (miejscownik) case

for most masculine nouns the two forms are the same

@mafketis
Nice wikipedia skills. Anyway i have used locative in this example because I believe that even a concept of wołacz is completely unknown to him.

Instead of lolling what about listening? The 'y' sound in 'szyp' is not at all the same as the 'i' sound in 'ship'. The 'y' sound in Polish is closer to the 'eu' sound in French, though not identical. If you say 'ship' with those phonetics you'll sound like Inspector Clouseau of the Sûreté. By the way due to all this controversey I asked my ukochany husband to listen to me saying the following sounds: cz, ci, sz and si in which he has assiduously and tirelessly instructed me in the past. He listened with that deadpan, impassive facial expression in which you dear and lovely Poles specialise, and then pronounced 'perfect'. So yah, booh, sucks to the pair of you - I rock and you don't :D Now if I could just get to grips with the grammar I'd be away in the proverbial hack.

I know it isn't hence I was lolling anticipating your post. I'm not a linguist. Someone claimed that Poles don't hear the difference between sheep and ship. BS.

English has few sounds or combination thereof that do not exist in the Polish lingo - no biggie.


Did you find it difficult to master?

Oh you big liar! You always try to wriggle out of things after you've said them - well to be fair, maybe not always, but quite often. Anyway maybe you can hear the difference between ship and sheep but a lot of your comptratiots can't because they tell me they can't.


May I help you with this? Czy mogę Pan pomoc? Not being sarcastic but this is a great example of where you need to use an article as not doing so gives your sentence the opposite meaning to the one you intend. English has few sounds.......etc would mean that English doesn't have many sounds that don't exist in Polish. Whereas what you want to say is that English has 'a few' sounds which don't exist in Polish, in other words it has some. So to clarify:

English has few sounds that don't exist in Polish = Most sounds in English are the same as Polish.
English has a few sounds that don't exist in Polish - Some sounds in English are different to Polish.

Mr Atch holds articles in the highest contempt as a lot of pointless nonsense. He once announced that he would no longer use them at all when speaking English, on a point of principle, but of course the habit is so entrenched at this stage that he couldn't stop himself! Mind you his use of articles is quite patchy, now you see them, or rather hear them, now you don't :)


Yes I did. I used to think I was saying them perfectly but apparently, according to the ukochany husband I was saying a kind of all-purpose version that was the same for both, probably closer to the 'ch' in English.

Oh Atch. lol! You're quite predictable.

Thank you Atch but I know the difference between few and a few
Just somehow 'a' has been lost in typing. I appreciate however your willingness to help.