Language / Polish regional accents? [141]

Merged: Regional pronunciation in different areas of Poland

Hi all. I tried searching for this but didn't find a match.
What are some of the differences in pronunciation in different areas of Poland? I was listening to a guy from Gdansk and there seemed to be a de-emphasis on the last syllable. For example, saying "żłóty", the 'y' was almost silent. Talking to people from Krakow, they mention that the enunciate more or emphasize proper letters more. For example, saying "samochód", the 'd' would be pronounced loud and clear and very distinctly from a 't'. I also hear that near neighboring countries there might be an influence from that neighboring country on the pronunciation.

What differences could one expect in the different regions? For extra bonus, are there distinct differences with Poles in Chicago or New York?

Language / Variations of the verb Chodzić [11]

Thanks for all the replies. Here's an updated list in case anyone is interested:

chodzić, iść = walk

wychodzić, wyjść = to leave

wchodzić, wejść = to climb. wchodzę na górę = I walk up the mountain.

obchodzić, obejść = to walk around, circumvent. celebrate. care about. obchodzę park = I walked around the park. Obchodzę urodziny (I celebrate my birthday)

odchodzić, odejść = to deviate from, depart from. to die: Dziadek odszedł (umarł) = (Our) grandfather has left us (died). Mój mąż odszedł = my husband left me.

przychodzić, przyjść = to come. Przyidziesz do mnie na moment? = Can you come to me for a moment?

przechodzić, przejść = to walk through

podchodzić, podejść = to climb up (mountain, stairs). to come closer: podchodzę blisko sceny = walked up to the stage. podchodzę pod górę = walked up the mountain.

schodzić, zejść = to climb down (mountain, stairs). schodzę na dół = I'm walking down. Schodzę z góry/drabiny - I climb down the mountain/ladder

zachodzić, zajść = to arise, set(sun) (zachodzi słoneczko). To visit (traditional meaning). zachodzę w ciążę = I got pregnant. kiedy zachodzi potrzeba = when the need arises.

pochodzić, N/A = derive from, descend from, come from. to walk a little. pochodzę z Polski = my roots are in Poland (come from). wczoraj pochodziłem trochę po parku = Yesterday I walked a little bit in the park. Pochodzę po sklepach = I walk around the shops (not to a specific one)

nachodzić, najść = to intrude on. nachodzić kogoś = to intrude on someone. nachodzić na siebie = to overlap. Policjant nachodzi mnie = police burst in on me.

nadchodzić, nadejść = to approach. Be on one's way. Nadchodzi burza = storm is on it's way (here). Nadchodzi wiosna = spring is coming.

dochodzić, dojść = to get as far as, to reach, accomplish, really close but not there. Also, the moment right before the orgasm (sorry for the crassness)

rozchodzić, rozejść = disperse, diverge. Ludzie rozchodzi się = the people dispersed. Proszę się rozejść = please disperse. A potem rezeszliśmy się do domów = and then we all split up to our homes.

uchodzić, ujść = walk a bit, walk off, withdraw, avoid, escape. uchodźca z Somali = escaped from Somalia = Somalian refugee. To escape (from represion, physical agression). ujść z życiem = escaped with with my life = I barely made it out alive.

wschodzić, wzejść = arise (sun, moon), sprout (grain). wschodząca gwiazda muzyki pop = a rising pop music star.

Language / Variations of the verb Chodzić [11]

doesn't on przyszedł mean 'he arrived' by foot, as opposed to car, air, boat, etc?
Since przybyć is more neutral, would I sound weird if I use it for all cases?

What are the transport verb groups in polish:
chodzić/iść/pojść = by foot?
llatać/lecieć/polecieć = by air
pływać/płynąć/popłynąć = by water
jeżdzić/jechać/pojechać = by land vehicle
Can't remember others, but I think 'to slither like a snake' is one of them.

Language / rules for genetive declension of female nouns ending in 'a' [8]

That is so surprising, Wlodzimierz! A whole book on the genitive masculine alone! Thanks for the reference. I was starting with simpler cases such as female declensions of nouns. I'm going to see if there's any way to programmatically access the dictionary service cinek suggested.

Language / The differences between these words: Oni plywaja / plyna / biegaja /biegna /chodza /ida [18]

I'm also a beginner, so correct me if I'm wrong but:
1) Chodzić is used for something you do routinely (even if it's not walking). Such as, "I go to the gym on tuesday's".

2) Chodzić is not as directional as iść. "iść" Is used if you're going somewhere with purpose, so chodzić is more like, "taking a walk...", than "I'm going to...".

3) I've heard the Rosetta stone issue come up before. It looked like they intended some directionality with "Płyną" vs "Pływają" since in the corresponding images they had people swimming willy nilly on one, and in all in one direction in the other. Same for biegną vs biegają. I don't think that's a valid association though. Anyone?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


There is no blunder in the threat title. You would know this if you read the original post. My point was that English is a lot more forgiving of errors in speaking and writing than Polish. The misspelling in the title showed this. Often you're actually considered MORE cool if you speak English wrong.

And you are right, it is hard to believe that ANYONE at any age can speak Polish intuitively; though obviously they do.

Goury, that link was cute - Thanks!

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Sorry, I don't mean to offend you. It's an important question for me though. My significant-other (SO) is Polish, which is why I'm learning, and she was saying she wants our kids to learn Polish, so I'm wondering if that would become a detriment of some sort to the child. I'm a little worried about it.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

Great link!

Some of you have mentioned that Polish students don't score low as compared to, say, British students. I'm sure that's true as those tests mostly test memorized material and procedures, which Polish students get a lot more practice on, since their language requires so much more of it. Chinese students always score very high as well, for the same reason. Memory gets a lot more exercise in those languages.

In the fields of creativity and innovation (which are super-hard to test), If we compare the number of new ideas and innovative art coming out of Poland per capita, would people be surprised if it proved to be low? It seems to me that when your thinking (driven by language) is so memory-driven that it would be hard to think outside the box.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Crap. I went to a Polish dictionary with pronunciations and compared "leszcz" with "teść". The "eszcz' part of "leszcz" did sound different than the "eść" part of "teść". I can't believe it! How did I not notice this before? It was hard to tell in-person with my sample group. I guess I was asking for contrived nonsensical words which may have thrown off the results. I needed words that were analogous, such as the "eszcz" part of 'leszcz' compared to the "eść" part of 'teść'. damn. sorry everyone. :-\

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

in leszcz and teść, I'd expect the "eszcz" part to sound identical to the "eść", but I'm hearing they would not. The "eść" would sound 'softer', 'palatized' but I'm not sure what that means. The tongue is positioned differently?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

But "Pięć" is not be pronounced like "Pięci" would (if there was such a word).

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


But wait a minute, what if you said, "Soćewica"? would it sound different than "Soczewica"? Would "Soćewica" sound like "Sociewica"?

"ćerwiec" sound more like "cierwiec" and less like "czerwiec"?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


This is a little bit of comparing apples vs oranges. 'cza' vs 'ci' - they'll sound different because there's a different vowel after them. The vowel throws the whole thing off. That's why my examples were contrived, because there is no czi in Polish, though I suspected this was becase 'ci' became shorthand for czi.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


ah, so 'ć' = 'ci'?
I notice in 'ci' the 'i' sounds more prominently than 'ć'. In ćpa and cipa, I'd expect the 'i' to sound more prominently in "cipa"

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Sorry if I offended you... I'm sure that event you describe isn't something anyone is proud of.

We're getting down to the nitty gritty. So exactly how does 'cz' differ from 'ć'? I really thought there wasn't a difference, but the conviction of the responders is making me doubt my previous conclusions. Some appear only in certain combinations. As we've all noted, 'i' doesn't follow 'cz' or 'ć'. Does 'e' ever follow 'ć'? My conclusion had been that it was the letters that follow the 'cz', 'ć' or 'c', not the pronunciation of them themselves. That if you did, force an 'i' after a 'ć' it would not be different from 'ci'. 'ć' is normally followed by a consonant or 'ś'. You never see 'ćsz', right?

So how does ćś differ from czsz?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


I meant it as a pronunciation exercise, not as an orthographic rule. To determine if there 'would' be such a difference where you to force yourself to put them together. Do you mean, it would be too difficult or weird to pronounce?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


I know some Chinese: the qi in Chinese is a difficult one to learn. It requires a certain mouth shape to say correctly. It's hard to explain. I didn't think the 'cz' in Polish did that. I'll listen for it now that I have a comparison.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Bingo! All the equivalent 'cz' sounds are pronounced EXACTLY the same way.

It seemed that way anyway, from my small sample group of a few people in Poland.
The poles I met had problems spelling them (on words I chose) and noticing the difference.

Maybe some of you guys do though. Hard to tell without voice.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


You have the letter 'ć', right? and you have the letter, 'i', right? Put them together. Does it sound different than 'ci'?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Not to digress too much, but Kanji is not an 'Alphabet'. Hiragana and Katakana are alphabets that both contains characters representing syllables that you put together to form sentences. Intermixed are Kanji characters. These are old Chinese pictographs (that China doesn't use anymore), where 1 pictograph represents a word and has a pronunciation associate with it. The pronunciation of a Kanji character can vary, but the symbol represents the same thing as the old Chinese character. Interesting side note, they don't use any spaces between their words, which is really awkward to look at. English/Spanish would be SO hard to read that way. Katakana is most often used to represent foreign words which are most commonly 20+ century words such as 'jet' and 'computer'. I spent some time in Japan as well :)

As to the other comment, wyjścia, wejścia sounds pretty similar, it's only one letter difference "y" and "e". Yes, the 'y' and the 'e' are extremely similar in certain words. I'm guessing those 2 get confused a lot in noisy environments. My test included also saying "Kwiaty" and "Kwiate" randomly 10 times and the Pole I tested also got it wrong 50% of the time.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Yes, I know. You have the 'cz' and you have the 'i', so as an exercise I put them together as czi. Same for szi. At some point, instead of writing czi and szi, people started writing ci and si.

In Chinese, there are more variations of the 'cz' sound and 'sz'. There are 5 as a matter of fact, and I can hear them all. In Polish I think it's mental. People 'think' they do, but they're just pronouncing it different because there are different letters before and after them. For example, since there is no 'czi' in Polish, people thought that the 'ci' was different than 'ći' or 'czi', but when I made a list of these randomly assorted, no one could tell which one was which. As in:

1. ci
2. ći
3. ći
4. czi
5. ci
6. czi
7. czi
8. czi
9. ći
10.ci
The success rate was about as good as flipping a coin (3 sided coin, I guess).

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


Japanese has alphabets. 2 as a matter of fact: Katakana and Hiragana. Kanji has chinese characters but not used as heavily as in Chinese. 300 is all you need to translate certain works.

The Chinese have invented a lot of amazing things, but i would expect a lot more progress and innovation from the more recent years, specially considering their great education.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


No, I didn't say it myself. I had one Pole read it to another Pole.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


I've heard that before, and others have mentioned it here. The Poles I talked to said the same thing. I tested it by putting together nonsensical combinations of these characters and the Poles could not tell the difference between ś and sz or ć and cz, nor could they tell the difference between ci and czi nor si and szi. I concluded Poles 'think' they can tell the difference, but they really can't, they just know the vocabulary so the know what word is being said. They deduce which one is being used from context.

Furthermore, I argue that if there is a building with some people inside and some people outside, and everyone hears, "Przyeść do wyjścia!" over a loudspeaker (which always garble the audio a bit), half the people outside would try to go inside the building, and half the people inside would try to exit.

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]


No I can't :\ I'm simply speculating. In my time in China, I concluded the same thing due to the huge amount of pictograph memorization.

It seems to make sense that the less memorization needed for effective communication, the more brain-power would be available for higher function. No?

Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

Thanks gumishu, that makes sense. That explanation does fit all the cases I've seen of 'jest' and instrumental nouns. They should phrase it like that in the grammar books.


The part of Spain where my family is from, which follows proper castillian, doesn't have those ambiguities except the first one. We do know where the 'h' goes, but it's an intuitive thing. Patterns picked up by the subconscious brain.

You're right though about those though. The 'x' is sometimes pronounced as a 'j'. This didn't used to be the case, but a few years ago the Royal Spanish Academy decided to make it so for old historic reasons. Quixote is pronounced "Quijote", Mexico, "Mejico", etc.