Polish pronunciation of "W Meksyku"

Where do I put the stress? Personally I would think on the first syllable (because it's a foreign name).

PS Ivona gives different results, therefore I ask you. :-)

There is no such rule, as far as I know. The exceptions to the standard "penultimate syllable stress" include words of Latin origin (bo-ta-ni-ka, w bo-ta-ni-ce, but bo-ta-ni-ka-mi; po-li-ty-ka, w po-li-ty-ce, but po-li-ty-ka-mi); plural forms of verbs in past tense (zro-bi-liś-cie, po-je-cha-liś-cie - the third syllable from the end); singular forms of subjunctive verbs (zro-bił-by, po-je-cha-ła-by - the third syllable from the end) or plural forms of subjunctive verbs (po-je-cha-li-byś-cie, zro-bi-li-byś-my - the fourth syllable from the end).

However, nobody would chop your head off if you did not follow these exceptions.

The stress "w Me-ksy-ku" is no different than stress "w I-ra-nie", "w Af-ga-ni-sta-nie" or "w U-rug-wa-ju" - it is put on the second syllable from the end. I think your confusion comes from the fact that the English "Mexico" is pronounced with the strong stress on the first syllable. Polish "Meksyk" has also similar stress, but the stresses in the phrases "in Mexico" and "w Meksyku" differ.

Thanks boletus! I was thinking of the Latin words exception, which however doesn't seem to apply to country names.

Still I find it interesting that the Ivona voices have different ways of putting the stress.
Compare Ewa (ivona.com/en/?tk=JoNUhdvwxM) with Jacek (ivona.com/en/?tk=6I68mVsI4x) for instance.

Your observation appears to be correct. Of the five synthetic Polish voices there, three seem stressing the first syllable, and two - the second one. The voice "Agnieszka" clearly belongs to the second group - following this classical description of stress in Polish:

In Polish stress is mixed -- tonic-dynamic. The following three elements form the word stress:

- beginning of a word is characterized by high level of intensity,
- increase in tone of accented syllable,
- lengthening of accented vowel and weakening of articulation at the end of the word.

In the two-syllable words (with the stress on the first syllable) accent is primarily dynamic and generally there is also some lengthening of the vowel (especially if the word is pronounced in isolation). The difference in pitch is less regular.

In longer words the stressed penultimate syllable has a higher tone than at least one of the syllables surrounding it and also the stressed vowel may be lengthened.

In the four-syllable and longer words - in addition to the penultimate stress - a secondary stress is put on the first syllable. The secondary accent has higher level of intensity than the next syllable.

translated from pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonetyka_j%C4%99zyka_polskiego

The voice synthesizer of the Google translator, although not that good as Ivona, very clearly stresses the second syllable in "w Meksyku".

I am quite impressed with the Ivona voice production: it is of much higher quality that I had ever been able to achieve many years ago (Yes, yes - I just happened to be involved in voice production software and hardware). But I would not take any of their synthesized voices for the ultimate authority of Polish pronunciation. :-)

One more thing: a sentence and a word stress interact somehow, so the phrases "w Meksyku" and "byłam w Meksyku" may appear having different stresses.

Thanks a lot for the explanation and the translation of the Wikipedia text.
As far as I understand now, the rule is that the stress is on the penultimate syllable. The fact that this rule is not always clearly audible, is because of the dynamics in tone when pronouncing words (in the Polish language). Am I correct?

Now the funny part is, that Jacek says "u-lica" and Ewa says "u-li-ca". - Quite the opposite of what you would expect, having the previous sentence in mind.

Could you record and post how you would pronounce "byłam w Meksyku" and "ulica". I presume you are a native speaker?

Yes, I would think so.

Sorry, Jacek, I cannot deliver samples of my speech; I have no mike handy to record my voice.

But believe me, the synthetic "Jacek" voice is completely wrong in "ulica"; it should be "u-li-ca". "He" sounds so-o-o Czech, :-) This is actually a good example to demonstrate the Czech-Polish difference in stress. Use translate.google.com to translate Polish "ulica" to Czech "ulice" then press those little speaker icons in both panes. You should hear very clearly the exaggerated sounds "u-li-ca" vs. "u-li-ce", pronounced by the same "speaker".

Some Polish dialects, such as Highlander's dialect, or more specifically Podhale dialect ("under mountain meadows", foothills, piedmont) usually put the stress on the first syllable (or on a preposition if it exists).

By the way, the word "ulica" comes from Hungarian and it originally meant a gorge, ravine, entrance.