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The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Polish language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles.
See Polish phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Polish.
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| IPA |
Orthography |
English approximation |
| (i) a |
a |
Between the a sounds in cat and car. |
| (i) ɛ |
e |
Similar to e in bed. |
| ɛ̃ |
ę[4] |
A nasal e sound. |
| (i) i |
i[1] |
Like the vowel of eat, but shorter. |
| ɨ |
y |
Between the vowels of pit and put. |
| (i) ɔ |
o |
Between the vowel sounds of pot (British pronunciation) and walk. |
| ɔ̃ |
ą[4] |
A nasal o sound. |
| (i) u |
u
ó |
Like the vowel of boot, but shorter. |
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Other symbols
| IPA |
Meaning |
| ˈ |
Denotes stress on the following syllable (usually the penultimate syllable of a word). |
Notes
- Voiced consonants are devoiced at the ends of words and in most combinations with voiceless consonants (so d in these situations is pronounced like t, z like s, etc.) However in some voiced/voiceless combinations it is the voiceless consonant which becomes voiced.
- Stress is usually on the penult (second-to-last syllable).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j The letter i, when followed by a vowel, either represents a pronunciation like a j or a "soft" pronunciation of the preceding consonant (so pies is pronounced as if it were spelt "pjes").
It has the same effect as an acute accent on alvoelar consonants (s, z, c, dz, n). So się, cios and niania are pronounced as if they were spelt "śę", "ćos", "ńańa". A following i also softens consonants when it is itself pronounced as a vowel, so for example zima, ci and dzisiaj are pronounced as if spelled "źima", "ći", "dźiśaj".
- ^ a b c d e f Affricates such as /ts/ and /dʐ/) are correctly written with tie-bars: /t͡s/, /d͡ʐ/. The tie-bars are omitted in the above chart, as they do not display correctly in all browsers.
- ^ a b c d e f Polish makes contrasts between retroflex and alveolo-palatal consonants, both of which sound like the English postalveolars /ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ/ The retroflex sounds are pronounced "hard" with the front of the tongue raised, and the alveolo-palatal sounds are "soft" with the middle of the tongue raised, adding a bit of a y or ee sound to them.
- ^ a b The letters ą and ę can have different values depending on their position in a word.
See also
Questions for article:
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