A | A as in father |
ą | Nasal as the ON in the French BON |
B | Same as English, except a final B is unvoiced (sounds like P) |
C | as English TS (even when it begins a word) |
ć | soft English CH sound |
D | Same as English (final unvoiced D sounds like T) |
E | as in pet |
ę | Nasal, almost like EN in TEN, but, same as e in pet when it is the final letter of a word |
F | same as English |
G | Always a hard G as in get (final G is unvoiced as K) |
H | Same as English |
I | as the I in machine |
J | as English Y as in yellow |
K | as in English |
L | as in English |
ł | as English W |
M | as in English |
N | as in English |
ń | as Spanish N/tilde as in English "NI" in onion |
O | as the O in the English word FOR. NEVER pronounced "OH" as in Ohio |
ó | as the oo in English FOOT, NOT as as the oo in English BOOT |
P | as in English |
Q | There is no Q in the Polish alphabet! |
R | Roll your R's like Spanish or Scottish |
S | as English soft SSSS, never as Z |
ś | soft sh sound |
T | as in English |
U | same as O/acute, as the oo in English FOOT, NOT as as the oo in English BOOT |
V | No V in the Polish alphabet! |
W | as English V (final V is unvoiced as F) |
X | No X! Only found in foreign words |
Y | Always used as a vowel, sounds like the i in IT. NEVER as "eeeee", NOT even at the end of a word. |
Z | as in English |
ź | (z with accute accent) soft zh like Zhivago |
ż | (z with a dot over it) harder zh sound |
CH | Same as H in English |
CZ | Hard CH sound as in CHURCH |
DZ | as in English "reD Zone", but.... |
DZI | DZ followed by an I is pronounced as J in "Jeep", that's why "Dziekuje" is pronounced "JEN koo yeh" |
RZ | Same hard zh as Z/dot (do not pronounce the R)(final RZ is unvoiced as SH) |
SZ | Hard SH sound |
SZCZ | combination of both as the SHCH in "Fresh cheese" |