| Welcome to Fun &Easy Polish by PolishPod101.com! |
| Do you know the Polish consonants that change pronunciation, based on their placement in a word? |
| Stay tuned to learn more! |
| Cześć! Jestem Łukasz. |
| Hi everyone! I’m Łukasz. |
| And I’m Alisha. |
| In this lesson, you’ll learn the secrets of Polish pronunciation. |
| Some languages’ pronunciation is rather difficult. |
| However, there are always some ways to make this easier. These tips aren’t secrets, but they’re often not commonly known. |
| In this video, you'll learn the ABCs of Polish pronunciation, the top five pronunciation mistakes to avoid, and some Polish vowel and consonant pronunciations. |
| I’ll also discuss other things to keep in mind, and how to deal with difficult words. |
| Then I’ll share extra tips on how to improve your Polish pronunciation. |
| Let’s start with the ABCs of Polish Pronunciation. |
| Polish uses the Latin alphabet, but there are certain additional letters that don’t exist in English. |
| We’ll go into detail later, but here’s a list of the additional letters in the Polish alphabet: |
| ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż |
| In total there are 32 letters in the Polish alphabet. |
| Fortunately, the additional letters are modifications of the ones you already know. |
| Another advantage is that Polish is phonetic. |
| This means that the spoken language is very similar to the written language. |
| Now, let's look at the five most common pronunciation mistakes. |
| Just like English, Polish has voiced and voiceless consonants. |
| Voiced consonants cause a vibration in your throat when you say them. |
| For instance, - b - and - d - are voiced, while - p - and - t - are voiceless. |
| Say them out loud to feel and hear the difference for yourself! |
| But how would you know which consonant is voiced, and which is voiceless? |
| Easy! |
| In Polish, the voiced consonants are "devoiced" if placed at the end of a word. |
| For instance, you’ll hear in the following word that the - b - is voiced. |
| Feel free to practice with me! |
| lubić |
| "to like" |
| [SLOWLY] lubić |
| lubić |
| In the next word, the position of the "b" moves to the end of the word, which changes its pronunciation. |
| klub |
| "club" |
| [SLOWLY] klub |
| klub |
| The same principle applies to d. |
| This means that when the word is written with a d at the end, its pronunciation changes to t. |
| The next mistake to avoid is confusing the special letters in Polish. |
| First of all, remember to pay special attention to Polish letters when reading. |
| To the untrained eye, the differences between a special letter and a regular one aren’t easy to spot. |
| For instance, the following word looks like it's spelled with an a. |
| But it’s actually an a with a tail, or an ogonek. |
| It’s pronounced nasally, like the French o (ą) in the word “son." |
| Like this: |
| wąż |
| "snake" |
| [SLOWLY] wąż |
| wąż |
| The third mistake to avoid is mispronouncing those famous Polish clusters of consonants. |
| These comprise certain two-letter pairs, like "c" and "z", which is pronounced - cz - , like in the word |
| Czechy |
| "Czech" |
| [SLOWLY] Czechy |
| Czechy |
| Polish surnames especially sound as if they're only written with consonants! |
| Did you know, there’s even a Polish tongue twister based on Polish surnames, which originated in the movie |
| Jak rozpętałem II wojnę światową. |
| The main character introduces himself to a German officer as |
| Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz |
| This surname is fictive, but you might come across similar ones in real life. |
| Obviously, it's important to pronounce someone's surname correctly, so look out for these. |
| Also challenging are those letters that look the same as the English ones, but are pronounced differently. |
| For instance, the Polish pronunciation of y sounds like the exaggerated "i" in "sin." |
| Like this: |
| ty |
| "you" |
| [SLOWLY] ty |
| Ty |
| Something that might help you remember this -- there’s also a word in Polish that’s pronounced the same way as “sin” but is written with a y. |
| Syn |
| “Son” |
| [SLOW] syn |
| syn |
| Finally, it's also important to remember that the stress in Polish is different than in English. |
| Most of the time, the stress falls on the second to last syllable of a word. |
| There are certain exceptions to this rule, but they’re rare. |
| Next, we’ll talk about Polish vowel pronunciation. |
| There are nine vowels in the Polish language. |
| You already learned two of them: y and ą, and they’re not familiar sounds in English. |
| Fortunately, there are some that you will recognize! |
| For instance, the a, which sounds the same in this word with the same meaning: |
| tata |
| "father" |
| [SLOWLY] tata |
| tata |
| Or the e which sounds like the "e" in "tent" and "pen": |
| For instance, this word: |
| mewa |
| "seagull" |
| [SLOWLY] mewa |
| mewa |
| Now, let's look at Polish consonant pronunciation. |
| Most Polish consonants are familiar to you. |
| But there are some new ones you’ll encounter in your studies. |
| For instance, the consonant ć. |
| It’s the same sound as the Italian word "ciao," so basically, like the softer "ch" in "chill." |
| This is what it sounds like in a Polish word: |
| ćma |
| "moth" |
| [SLOWLY] ćma |
| ćma |
| Or the ł, which is pronounced like "w" in "wood." |
| łódka |
| "boat" |
| [SLOWLY] łódka |
| łódka |
| Let’s continue with some other things to keep in mind. |
| We can’t cover all the rules of Polish pronunciation in this video, but we can look at two other important issues. |
| First, the rolling of the “R”, which sounds different than the softer "R" in English. |
| A good word to practice with is: |
| droga |
| "road" |
| [SLOWLY] droga |
| droga |
| Also, words that end in consonants should not run into words that start with vowels, like you do in English. |
| In Polish, such words are pronounced separately, with a small but noticeable pause between them. |
| And now you’ll learn how to deal with difficult words. |
| There are some real tongue-twister words in Polish, just like in any other language! |
| Master them by practicing fun sentences like this one: |
| Król Karol kupił Królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego. |
| "King Karol has bought a coral-colored bead necklace to Queen Karolina." |
| [SLOWLY] Król Karol kupił Królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego. |
| Król Karol kupił Królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego. |
| Don't worry if you don't get it right at first! |
| Even native speakers battle with tongue-twisters like these! |
| There's no substitute for a lot of practice, though. |
| For the really difficult words, listen to a native speaker and repeat them until you feel confident. |
| Some phrases and words are also very long, and therefore difficult to learn. |
| Conquer these words by dividing them! |
| For instance, divide difficult words into units you already know. |
| Such as the word kolorowy, which means "colorful." |
| You may already know kolor, so chop the word in two, like this: kolor and owy. |
| Practice with me: |
| kolor-owy |
| "colorful" |
| [SLOWLY] kolor-owy |
| kolorowy |
| See? Not that difficult. |
| If you don't know a part of the word, divide it into syllables. |
| Like this: |
| ko-lo-ro-wy |
| "colorful" |
| [SLOWLY] ko-lo-ro-wy |
| kolorowy |
| In this lesson you learned the ABCs of Polish pronunciation, the top five pronunciation mistakes to avoid, and some Polish vowel and consonant pronunciations. |
| I also discussed other things to keep in mind, how to deal with difficult words, and I shared some extra tips on improving your Polish pronunciation. |
| Want to learn Polish fast with PDF cheat sheets? You get cheat sheets for all kinds of topics: travel, hobbies, love and much more… |
| …and you'll learn all of the must-know words and phrases for each. |
| Click the link in the lesson description and sign up for a free lifetime account to get them! |
| That’s it for today! See you next time! |
| Do zobaczyska! |
| See you next time! |
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