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Polish Alphabet & Pronunciation
The polish alphabet (“alfabet polski“) consists of 32 letters (23 consonants and 9 vowels). Unlike other slavic languages, the polish language (“język polski“) uses Latin Script with additional diacritics for the special polish phonemes (such as ą and ł). A good rule to remember is that with the most Polish words, the stress lies on the second last syllable.
The Polish Alphabet
Additional letters in the polish alphabet are ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź and ż. In Polish, the letters q, v and x are only used in foreign words.
Pronunciation of the nasal vowels ą and ę
The pronunciation of the Polish nasal vowels ą and ę depends on the consonant following them. For example, the letter ę can be pronuonced like “n“, “en” or french “on“, depending on the context.
The letter Listen to Pronunciation ą
| following consonant | Phonetic notation (IPA symbols) | Example | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|---|
| single, end of word or before ch, f, h, rz, s, sz, ś, w, z, ź or ż | [ɔ̃] | Listen to Pronunciation mąż | as in french champignon |
| b or p | [ɔm] | Listen to Pronunciation ząb | as in English combination |
| c, cz, d, dz, dż or t | [ɔn] | Listen to Pronunciation miesiąc | as in English monster |
| ć or dź | [ɔɲ] | Listen to Pronunciation wziąć | as in french cognac |
| g or k | [ɔŋ] | Listen to Pronunciation pociąg | as in English wrong |
The letter Listen to Pronunciation ę
| following consonant | Phonetic notation (IPA symbols) | Example | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|---|
| single or before ch, f, h, rz, s, sz, ś, w, z, ź or ż | [ɛ̃] | Listen to Pronunciation często | as in french cousin |
| end of word | [ɛ] | Listen to Pronunciation imię | as in English angle |
| b or p | [ɛm] | Listen to Pronunciation zęby | as in English emphasis |
| c, cz, d, dz, dż or t | [ɛn] | Listen to Pronunciation wszędzie | as in English then |
| ć or dź | [ɛɲ] | Listen to Pronunciation pięć | as in English send |
| g or k | [ɛŋ] | Listen to Pronunciation piękny | as in English strength |
Letter combinations in the Polish language (Digraphs and Trigraphs)
Digraphs (combinations of two letters) and Trigraphs (combinations of three letters) are pronounced like one single letter. On the other hand, two consecutive consonants are mostly pronounced separately in Polish. E.g., both “b” in the word “hobby” are vocalized, with a short pause between both letters (“hob-by“).
Digraphs
Digraphs in the Polish alphabet are ch, cz, dz, dź, dż, rz and sz.
| Combination | Phonetic notation (IPA symbols) | Example | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listen to Pronunciation ch | [x] | Listen to Pronunciation chory | between scottish loch and english heart |
| Listen to Pronunciation cz | [ʈ͡ʂ] | Listen to Pronunciation czuć | as in English watch |
| Listen to Pronunciation dz | [d͡z] | dzwon | as in English woods |
| Listen to Pronunciation dź | [d̠͡ʑ] | Listen to Pronunciation odpowiedź | as in English Jeep |
| Listen to Pronunciation dż | [ɖ͡ʐ] | Listen to Pronunciation dżem | as in English jungle |
| Listen to Pronunciation rz | [ʐ] | Listen to Pronunciation rzadko | as in french journal |
| Listen to Pronunciation sz | [ʂ] | Listen to Pronunciation szukać | as in English shoes |
Trigraphs
The only Trigraph in the Polish language is “dzi“.
| Combination | Phonetic notation (IPA symbols) | Example | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listen to Pronunciation dzi | [ʥ̑] | Listen to Pronunciation dzień | as in English Jeep |
To hear the pronunciation of the Polish alphabet and digraphs, watch the video “Polish Alphabet & Pronunciation” under Learning Polish with Videos & Podcasts.
Punctuation marks
| Symbol | English | Polish |
|---|---|---|
| . | period / full stop | Listen to Pronunciation kropka |
| : | colon | Listen to Pronunciation dwukropek |
| , | comma | Listen to Pronunciation przecinek |
| ; | semicolon | Listen to Pronunciation średnik |
| ! | exclamation mark | Listen to Pronunciation wykrzyknik |
| ? | question mark | Listen to Pronunciation pytajnik |
| – | dash / hyphen | Listen to Pronunciation kreska |
| / | slash | Listen to Pronunciation kreska ukośna |
| backslash | Listen to Pronunciation ukośnik | |
| @ | at sign | Listen to Pronunciation małpa |
Unicode-Signs and HTML codes of Polish letters
In order to display Polish letters correctly on Computers, websites and in web addresses, in many cases they have to be encoded:
| Letter | Unicode | HTML |
|---|---|---|
| ą | U+0105 | ą |
| Ą | U+0104 | Ą |
| ć | U+0107 | ć |
| Ć | U+0106 | Ć |
| ę | U+0119 | ę |
| Ę | U+0118 | Ę |
| ł | U+0142 | ł |
| Ł | U+0141 | Ł |
| ń | U+0144 | ń |
| Ń | U+0143 | Ń |
| ó | U+00F3 | ó |
| Ó | U+00D3 | Ó |
| ś | U+015B | ś |
| Ś | U+015A | Ś |
| ź | U+017A | ź |
| Ź | U+0179 | Ź |
| ż | U+017C | ż |
| Ż | U+017B | Ż |
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Hi, Thanx so much for all the information. It’s been so useful for me 🙂
Great to hear, thanks for your comment 🙂
Thank you so much for this lesson!
I saw a headline “Koniec deklaracji VAT”. Does anyone know how VAT is pronounced? Thanks in advance.
I have student whose surname is
pietruszewska
1) Is this a Polish surname?
2) Can someone please help me to pronounce it, if it is?
Thank you,
warm regards.
1. Yes, it is.
2. I guess that is something like “pee-ye-true-shevska” or better in IPA as [pjɛtruʂɛvska].
Greetings from Poland 😀
An online resource for pronunciation is: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal
Hi all,
Do anyone know how to read # in Polish?
It is “kratka”.
Hi. A remarc on nasal vowels.
Since some letter combination are impossible, we can reduce this group: (f, h , rz can’t follow a nasal vowel)
single or before ch, f, h, rz, s, sz, ś, w, z, ź or ż
to a smaller one
ch,
s, sz, ś,
w,
z, ź or ż
so. if it starts with an s or an z with any mark , or with a ch or a w, it’s nasal
Very helpful, thank you very much Bazyl!
hi,
I really wanted to download the cheat sheet in pdf file but when i subscribe nothing comes up, how can i do it?
Hi Madzia,
thanks for pointing this out. The problem was due to a plugin I’m using on the website. Now everything should be working fine again.
I’ve sent you an email with the two cheat sheets (numbers & alphabet).
If anybody else has been experiencing the same problem, please try again now. If you get a message stating that your email is already subscribed, send me a short message to [email protected] and I will send you the cheat sheets as well.
Kind regards,
Tobias
Hello, could someone explain me please how to use the html code for special letters? I didn’t really understand it…
Thanks!
Hi Matan, HTML is the “language” that every website is written in. Sometimes a programmer can’t use special characters for a variety of reasons. But they can actually come in handy for “normal” users who don’t have the characters on their keyboards, or when the server of a forum etc. doesn’t accept them. Most web servers don’t allow HTML input from users (or just a limited subset) due to security reasons, though.
If you want to dive deeper into HTML, there are tons of resources on the internet…
Oh, boy. A guy from the great American Midwest tries to figure out phonetic sounds. ó has the sound of the vowels in “root.”
Where I, and millions of others, come from these words all rhyme: root, foot and put. They all have the short u sound. Can that be correct? (Also rhyming are pout and route.)
Thanks for your work in presenting the Polish language to interested learners. My interest stems from wanting the correct pronunciation of the title of the Christmas carol W żłobie leży. Long ago a man – of Polish parents – told us something like “Va zhwo-bi-yeh leh-zhih.” I tried – unsuccessfully – on Google to find an audio file containing the pronunciation. But then I saw your website(s). I do believe that I had correctly remembered what the gentleman had told us about two decades ago.
Thanks for your comment, Tomás. I’ve found a recording of the carol that might help you with its pronunciation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h-RRfUIIQM
Kind regards,
Tobias
hi, good website. I am trying to learn polish but I am having problem with words that have prz at the beginning not sure if the “p” actually has a sound or not?? I am going to bookmark this site. I grew up with Polish grandparents and my dad speaks fluently but I never learned the language fully just knew certain words and phrases. Since my grandparents have both past on I want to honor their memory and learn this beautiful language. Any help you can give me regarding how to pronounce words with prz at the beginning would be most appreciated. TY
Hello Joseph,
I really appreciate your efforts in learning the language of your ancestors. Regarding your question, please listen carefully to the audio samples here, i.e. the verbs przychodzić and przeliterować. You’ll find that the “p” actually has a sound, whereas the following “rz” is pronounced as one single sound (as shown in the Digraphs table above). Remember, Polish pronunciation is really tough for most beginners, but learning a new language not so much about perfection, but constant progress (at least in my opinion). So just keep on training and don’t worry too much about being “perfect”, especially in the beginning.
Kind regards,
Tobias
It’s pronounced like “psz” also trzy is pronounced “tszy”
I am sorry, I opened another persons video on this page and thought it was yours. You never mention ą being exceptional in your video. Really sorry for the comment :).
No problem, thanks for commenting, anyway 🙂
It’s a very helpful site and your explanations are very nice. What caught my attention though is that you are misleading listeners by saying, that letters like “ą” are used only in Polish. Lithuanian language and some others also have this letter. Maybe it is pronounced specifically, but letter isn’t unique to polish language. You can find more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%84
Other than that I find video very helpful.
great resource; Polish is a VERY hard language to learn!
Thanks, hope my site helps a bit 🙂
It’s probably the best article to start with. Although polish is a slavic language, many things sound weird for a russian ear. For example, “daleko” sounds like a foreigner is trying to speak russian. Dont mean to offend anyone 🙂
Surely Mąz should be “mąż”?
Of course, thanks for the hint!
Good explication of the alphabet! Just one remark: Afer exh letter of the Polish alphabet, you write: “as in english”. In correct English, must be written with capital letter E.
Thanks, I’ve corrected that.
Kind regards
I don’t see the (zi) pronunciation
Hi Kasia,
which one do you mean exactly?
Kind regards,
Tobias
I’ve gone through many websites that teach polish for absolute beginners and THIS website is the best of all!
I really like how it is categorized and how you can Listen to the pronunciations and relate it to similar ones in english and french.
I’ve read about how hard learning polish can be since it has more exceptions than rules, but your method makes it seem pretty easy.
Thank you so much for providing them in Free downloadble PDF format, I REALLY appreciate your work!
Keep it up!
Fouad
Thanks Fouad. I really appreciate your nice comment!
który daje tę kobietę, aby być żoną tego mężczyzny
k-too-rih die-yeh teh koh-bee-et-a ah-bih bitch show-na tay-go men-chiz-nih
Odpowiedź – ubezdźwięcznione w wygłosie dź ([ć]) żeby zilustrować brzmienie dź to nie najlepszy pomysł.
I’m having trouble with ż and ź, can’t tell them apart!
The difference is hard to describe – I’d suggest you to listen to as many examples as you can, or, ideally, talk to a Polish speaking person and ask them to show you the difference. Don’t forget that most people will be delighted by the fact that you’re learning their language, even if your pronunciation isn’t perfect right from the beginning 🙂
Hi, is their anyone that can help me to break down phonetically how to say który daje tę kobietę, aby być żoną tego mężczyzny? (which I believe to be – Who gives this woman to be married to this man? – in English)
I need to say it at a Wedding on behalf of the brides Polish Father but I am having terrible trouble trying to prounounce it! I would be so grateful for anyones help. Thank you.
Wow, thank you so much. I can see that I’ll have a lot of difficulty getting used to separating big consonant clusters in my head (such as in wykrzyknik) but your descriptions helped me to correctly (although with a funny accent) pronounce the punctuation names before listening to them. Thank you! I hope I can become better at pronunciation quickly.
Thanks for your kind comment, Kiwi 🙂
Thank you very much. I’m enjoying it.
This is really great! Thanks so much for doing this! I’m an adopted Polish trying to learn about my heritage and language so this is just amazing for me!
Iam living in Poland and this site is the best ever I say in internet realy great thanks for help
Thank you very much, ferdows 🙂
If I could add something (I prepared my own version). Enjoy it ;p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RIB15ZjuYo
Very helpful, thanks for sharing Darek!
i like it!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks 🙂
I think I am the only Mexican learning Polish, I am really affraid of talking to Polish people because I think they are going to be upset because fault of respect of bad pronunciation or misuse of pani´s.
Well that is my opinion for today, maybe tomorrow I have another idea.
Thanks anyway very much for helping out without any interest.
Don’t be afraid to upset people. In my experience, Polish people appreciate people trying to learn their language and will be glad to help you improve your skills. Just try it out 🙂
Best regards
Addendum…. more like the “e” in Engles, Karl Marx’s friend and financial backer.
Being English born and resident, but born to Polish speaking parents, I think you have a very good English phonetic approximation to Polish letters. Just believe that Polish “A” sounds less like the “a” in “smart” and more like the “a” in “ahoy”. Also the ę in imię
less like “as in English angle” and more like the “e” in German “Engle”
Thanks Dariusz for your helpful feedback!
Super useful site, thankyou!
In paragraph “Pronunciation of the nasal vowels ą and ę” it should be “mąż” (“ż” instead of “z”).
Besides, “?” is called “znak zapytania”. “Pytajnik” is wrong translation. However, many children in primary school tend to say in this way and they’re always corrected into “znak zapytania”. 🙂
And at the end, I’ve never heard “kreska ukośna”, even though it makes sense. Both “/” and “\” are called “ukośnik”. However, we usually use the first one.
Thanks for your interest in Polish language!
I will be in Warsaw because my husband is presenting at the MCE2015 conference and I want to know some Polish. This is very useful. Thank you!
You’re welcome 🙂 Enjoy your stay in Warsaw, it’s a fascinating city!
this helped me a lot, but still i can’t perfectly pronounce some letters. 😀 it’s a little bit difficult, but this is such a big help for those who wants to learn this language.
Thanks Shaira! Achieving perfection will probably take a bit more than our small website can offer, but I’m perfectly happy if it helped you get started 🙂 From there on, practicing (ideally with native speakers) is the best thing you can do to refine your skills imo.
Best regards,
Tobi
Hi as a speech therapist working with Polish children who have speech sound difficulties in both languages, your description of the sounds was really helpful! Now I just need some simple Polish words to give mum for her to practise the sounds he finds hard! Thanks
Hi Rachael,
glad to hear you find my website useful. May I recommend you my new site, App2Brain (http://app2brain.com/learn-languages/polish/)? I’m currently developing new grammar and vocabulary lessons for that site, together with international language experts. If you subscribe to the Blog in the right sidebar or follow the page on Facebook, you’ll be notified everytime I publish new lessons on the site.
Of course, everybody else is invited to join as well 🙂
Best regards,
Tobi
Hi, I think there’s a mistake for the trigraph “dzi“ (example dzień) : the IPA [ɛɲ] is for “eń”, not for “dzi”.
Wow, respect for finding that one 🙂
It now has the correct IPA, [ʥ̑]. Thanks a lot!
A very helpfull guide.Keep the good work up.
Thank you!
Hello Konstantin,
The expression is ” Keep up the good work”
Regards, Myles
I like this content of this page, very helpful for me as a Polish teacher. There is one thing that I have noticed that is not true – stress in Polish does NOT always lie on the second last syllable. Perhaps it makes it easier for people learning this language to remember the rule, but it is just not so. Good luck all Polish learners!
Thanks for your comment, I have changed the introduction accordingly.
How is ‘na todce’ pronounced?
“Na todce” is the title of a famous peace of music, but it’s not a “real” Polish word that would appear in a dictionary. My guess would be to pronounce it something like “nah todd-say”, while this comment suggests to pronounce it “nar-wood-tsay”.
Maybe one of our readers can help here?
It is definitely not a word in Polish. However, the explanation for this problem and also for the aforementioned pronunciation “nar-wood-tsay” which is more or less correct, is that the original Polish title is probably “Na łódce” (meaning literally on a boat).
By non-Polish speakers, ó was changed to o and someone mistook ł (pronunced like English w) as t. Long story short 🙂
Thanks a lot Maciek for your interesting explanation! That absolutely makes sense 🙂
Problem with the digraphs “dź” word choice of “odpowiedź”. Since the digraph appears at the end of the word it takes on the sound of the voiceless consonant “ć”. This might lead to confusion for some.
I am glad I found this website that I can learn polish. It is good that there is video and audio so that I can listen to the sound for pronunciation. It is very useful for me to learn polish. Thank you very much for helping me to learn the language as I want to live in Poland. Poland is a beautiful country and people are friendly.
Mata
You really do think that my country is beautiful?I’m surprised..This is the first time that I hear that about Poland from foreigner.
Different foreigner here, but I think Poland is beautiful also! I’m from the UK and I love Slavic languages, I’m learning Russian and Polish, I’d love to visit both someday.
Hi magda
I was in Warsaw last week and trust me I found the city to be both fascinating and beautiful. A truly great city of which all
Poles should be proud – all the people that I met were friendly too! I can’t wait to return
I am arab and muslim and I love Poland also ……
this has been a major help, as for me its a difficult language, but very keen to learn, thx again!
I think you have a mistake into the ABC “n” file content. It is “l” pronunciation. I hope you fix it.
Hi Anatoly,
the pronunciation of “n” is correct in my opinion. What exactly do you mean is wrong?
Best regards and thanks for your input,
Tobi
It is all right. It seemed to me. Best regards.
Very useful audio pronounciation guide
Thank you!