Polish Alphabet and Pronunciation

The Polish alphabet has 32 letters, including nine with marks: <span lang="pl">ą ę ć ł ń ó ś ź ż</span>. Spelling is regular, so once you learn the sounds and the letter pairs like <span lang="pl">cz</span>, <span lang="pl">sz</span> and <span lang="pl">rz</span>, you can read any word aloud.

The 32 letters of the Polish alphabet

The Polish alphabet has 32 letters: a ą b c ć d e ę f g h i j k l ł m n ń o ó p r s ś t u w y z ź ż. Nine of them carry a diacritic mark. The letters q, v and x are not part of it and appear only in foreign words and names.

The good news: Polish spelling is very regular. Once you know how each letter and letter pair sounds, you can read almost any word aloud correctly, even if you have never seen it. Many letters sound close to English. These are the ones that don't:

Vowels are short and clean. Polish has no long vowels and no vowel sounds that glide like English "ay" in "day". Every vowel is pronounced, including a final e.

The special letters: ą ę ć ł ń ó ś ź ż

Two of these are easy wins. Ł is just an English w: the city Łódź is said "wooch". Ó sounds exactly like u; the two spellings exist for historical reasons, so góra would sound the same written with u. The others need a closer look.

Letter pairs: cz, sz, rz, ch, dz, dź, dż

Polish writes some single sounds with two letters. Read each pair as one sound, never as two separate letters.

Rz and ż sound the same, as do ch and h, and u and ó. Polish children spend years learning which spelling goes where, but as a speaker you don't need to worry: the sound is identical. Combinations also stack. Szcz is sh plus ch, as in "fresh cheese": Szczecin (SHCHEH-cheen), szczęście (happiness, SHCHENSH-cheh).

Soft consonants: ś, ć, ź, ń, dź

Polish has a hard and a soft version of the hissing sounds. The hard ones (sz, cz, ż, dż) are made with the tongue tip raised and the lips slightly rounded, like English sh. The soft ones (ś, ć, ź, dź) are made with the middle of the tongue pressed up towards the roof of the mouth and the lips spread, as if smiling. Soft sounds are lighter and higher.

Each soft sound has two spellings. Before a consonant or at the end of a word it has an accent: ś, ć, ź, ń, dź. Before a vowel it is written with i: si, ci, zi, ni, dzi. In that case the i only marks softness and is not a separate vowel, so nie (no) is one syllable, "nyeh".

Hard and soft pairs can change meaning, so it pays to practise them: proszę (please) and prosię (piglet), kasza (groats) and Kasia (Kate), czy (whether) and ci (to you).

An i after other consonants works the same way. It softens them with a quick y sound: pies (dog) is "pyes", miasto (city) is "MYAH-stoh", kiedy (when) is "KYEH-dih".

Nasal vowels ą and ę

Ą is a nasal o and ę is a nasal e, a bit like French "on" and "in". Their exact sound depends on the next letter, and this is what most learners get wrong.

• Before p or b they sound like om, em: kąpiel (bath) KOM-pyel, ząb zomp.
• Before t, d, c, cz they sound like on, en: piątek (Friday) PYON-tek, mądry (wise) MON-drih.
• Before k or g they sound like ong, eng: ręka REN-kah, mąka (flour) MON-kah.
• Before l or ł the nasal disappears: wziął (he took) vzhow, wzięli (they took) VZHEH-lee.
• Before s, sz, z, w, ch and at the end of a word they stay truly nasal: wąs (moustache), gęś (goose).
• At the end of a word, ę is usually said as a plain e: proszę PROH-sheh, dziękuję jen-KOO-yeh. Final ą keeps its nasal sound: idą (they go) EE-dow.

Stress and sound changes

Stress on the second-to-last syllable

Polish stress is almost always on the second-to-last syllable. When a word gets longer, the stress moves with it: telefon (teh-LEH-fon), but telefonu (teh-leh-FOH-noo). Remember that an i before a vowel is not a syllable of its own: kiedy has two syllables, KYEH-dih.

The main exceptions are some words from Greek and Latin ending in -ika or -yka, like muzyka (MOO-zih-kah) and matematyka, past tense forms such as byliśmy (BIH-leesh-mih, we were), and conditional forms like zrobiłbym (zroh-BEEW-bim, I would do). In casual speech many people put these on the second-to-last syllable too.

Devoicing at the end of a word

At the end of a word, voiced consonants lose their voice: b sounds like p, d like t, g like k, w like f, z like s, and ż or rz like sh. The same happens next to a voiceless consonant inside a word.

Note the last three. After p, t, k and ch, the pair rz is said as sh. Short words like w (in) and z (with) join the next word and change with it: z tobą (with you) is "s TOH-bow".

Common traps for English speakers

• Reading w as English w. Wino (wine) is VEE-noh.
• Reading ł as l. Łyżka (spoon) is WISH-kah.
• Reading c as k or s. Cebula (onion) is tseh-BOO-lah.
• Reading rz as r plus z. Rzeczywiście (really) starts with zh. In a few words r and z really are separate, like marznąć (to be cold), MAR-znonch.
• Saying y like ee. My (we) is mih, but mi (to me) is mee.
• Dropping a final vowel. Ale (but) is AH-leh and kawę (coffee, as in "a coffee, please") is KAH-veh, two clear syllables each.
• Putting stress on the first syllable, as in English. Say Warszawa as var-SHAH-vah, not VAR-sha-va.
• Panicking at consonant clusters. Take them one sound at a time: wszystko (everything) is FSHIST-koh, pszczoła (bee) is PSHCHOH-wah.

Polish tongue twisters

Tongue twisters (łamańce językowe, literally "tongue breakers") are a good workout for the hard and soft sounds. The most famous one comes from a poem by Jan Brzechwa, and Szczebrzeszyn is a real town in eastern Poland.

Start slowly, one word at a time, then speed up. In chrząszcz, say chrz as "khsh", then the nasal "on", then szcz as "shch". Every word on this site has its own page with all its forms, so once the sounds feel natural, you can practise them on real vocabulary.