Vowels

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English (British) vowels and Polish vowels

Examples for the Polish vowels:

• /i/ – mit ‘myth’,
• /ɛ/ – ten ‘this’,
• /a/ – kat ‘hangman’, lak ‘sealing-wax’,
• /ɔ/ – rok ‘year’,
• /u/ – luk ‘hatchway’, runy ‘runes’,
• /ɨ/ – był ‘he was/has been’.

Examples for the English (British) vowels:

• /i/ – tea, meet,
• /ɪ/ – it, kill, lucky,
• /e/ – men, ten, tell,
• /æ/ – cat, pal,
• /a/ – luck, dull, other,
• /ɑ/ – father, yard, heart,
• /ɒ/ – rock, dog,
• /o/ – saw, stalk, bought, call,
• /ʊ/ – look, put,
• /u/ – moon, runes, rule,
• /ɜ/ – girl, turn, word, kernel,
• /ə/ – about, colour, sister.

WARNING: Both English and Polish vowels differ from the standard vowels marked by IPA symbols. That is why I use /e/, /o/, /y/ elsewhere instead of /ɛ/, /ɔ/, /ɨ/ to make reading of Polish transcribed words easier for those who do not know the IPA symbols.

How to read the Polish vowels properly:

• /i/ – very similar to ee in meet, but short and uniform (without y-like ending);
• /e/ – between a in man and e in men, similar to e before a dark l in tell;
• /a/ – between o in mother and a in father, very similar to the first element of I /aj/, a little more opened than u in dull;
• /o/ – very similar to the first element of oy, oi in boy, coin, between o in spot and or in sport, it is rounded very weakly and closer to standard /ʌ/ rather than /ɔ/;
• /u/ – similar to oo in moon, root, but short and uniform (without w-like ending);
• /y/ – similar to i before a dark l like in silk, kill.

All the Polish vowels are short.

Main page – Polish grammar

2008-02-21