Talk:Polish/Polish pronunciation

Untitled
It would be great to an in-page media player, like this plugin. Currently, it's hard to see the text of the examples and the audio examples.

This section on pronounciation isn't particularly helpful for native english speakers (presumably that majority of readers). Need more examples of the usage in words. For example the vowel "i". The pronounciation can short or long, "like" vs "little". I'm guessing that it's more like a short "ee" as in "beet"? Bwood 03:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Completely agree. We need more examples, and clearer examples.  For instance, the very first vowel in the list "a" has no notes or English examples at all in the chart.  Is it pronounced like "a" in "hat", or "a" in "car", or "a" in "cake"?
 * Notes are given for the consonent "r", but they are ambiguous: "Rolled r. r is also acceptable."  Well, which is it?  A "rolled r" sounds very differnt from "r" in English.
 * And again, for "w" -- "Pronounced like v. Before voiceless consonants, it may be pronounced as f."  OK, fine.  But how do I know which consonants are "voiceless" in Polish, if I'm not a native speaker?  None are listed, nor are any word examples given.74.92.174.105 (discuss) 02:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Not like in "like", i is short vowel similar to ee in feet. In Polish aren't differences between short and long vowels, but diffrences was some hundreds years ago and now in Polish language is o (old short /o/) and ó (old long /o/, now /oo/).

in like i is pronunce as aj in Polish.

Nie tak jak w like, i jest krótką samogłoską podobną do ee w feet. W polskim nie ma różnic między krótkimi i długimi samogloskami, ale różnice były kilka setek lat temu i teraz w języku polskim jest o (stare krótkie /o/) i ó (stare długie /o/, teraz /u/).

w like i jest wymawiane jak aj w polskim.

Come on!! "ci" does NOT sound like "chea" in "cheap". Not at all! It sounds rather like three sounds "tsi" pronounced all together. It's of course very difficult for a forigner but that's the way we pronouce "ci". Otherwise I'll sound awfully strange, weird.

Another mistake! "ź" sounds like "z" and "i" pronounced together!! Never like "j'y" in French "j'y vais"!

Sorry but you're wrong on both counts. I'm a native Polish speaker who learned English (Canadian-English) at an early age. tsi is not even close to Polish ci. After i, c is pronounced like a soft ch. "chea" in "cheap" is a pretty good example. And ź sounds like zi pronounced together only from the point of view of a native Polish speaker. However, we're aiming this guide at people who are just learning Polish. Being Canadian I have studied French for a few years in school and j'y seems like an ok example to me, but my French is not that great so I'd welcome input from someone who's fluent in it.

Another mistake is suggesting "nail polish" for pronuncisation of "o". In American English, that "o" sounds close to an "a". A better example would be an "o" as in "blog". I assume the writer of this guide studied British English.

Encoding
It would be a great help if it could be indicated somewhere what encoding (UTF-8, Central European (DOS), Baltic (Windows)) should be used to display this and other guides to pronunciation. And also a list of what browsers reproduce the text correctly.

--194.74.152.66 (talk) 11:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Paul Redfern


 * I don't understand. UTF-8 is used on all pages on Wikipedia, Wikibooks etc. There is nothing special to this page in terms of character encoding. Furthermore, I don't think that a program which does not handle UTF-8 encoding on this page should be called "browser". All modern browsers have to be able to display contents here. --Derbeth talk 22:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * All browsers may have the ability to display these characters, provided they are properly set up to do so. I've viewed Wikipedia with many different "modern browsers" that rendered phonetic characters as with question marks ( ???? ) or small hollow boxes (▫▫▫▫).  Don't just assume that everyone who views the page is seeing the same thing you happen to be seeing, with your setup.
 * I don't see anything wrong with giving some indication of the encoding at the top of any page that makes heavy use of characters other than basic, generic ASCII.74.92.174.105 (discuss) 02:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

One note - rz is not always pronounced ʐ (Hard zh). There are some words that have r and z sounds pronounced separately. Marznąć - to feel cold, zamarzać - to freeze, obmierzły - foul, ugly are examples of this. All of them come from stem mróz - frost.

There is a mistake in the special letters table (letter ś/si) - "gęsi" is pronounced like "gęśi", not like "gęśe".

pronounciation of special and compound letters
I can't agree that 'si' is pronounced same like 'ś'. That 'i' is really audible (also in rest of that compositions: 'ć'/'ci', 'ń'/'ni' etc.). compare 'ś'/'si' words "śnieg" and "siniak", in both cases 'ś'/'si' is followed by 'n', but sound differs (in second case there is obvious 'i' sound). Also in article is example with "gęsi". Its funny cos if you pronouce it like article says, it sounds like singular ("gęsi" is plural form of "gęś"). With other letters is same problem.

what about
 * psz prz pr brz rż rżn grzm grd sk skr skrz szk szkl szkł źr hrz chrz kł kl ks kszt krz krzt szcz czk ts trz dw dr drw drzw drz dz dzw drż dż dżdż bj ćp ćm ść św śp żn żń żm zm mż żb ...  and perhaps 2x more consonant clusters .. spł wpł zł łz