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Lesson four. Subject: Some Polish sounds more difficult to pronounce. The plural number of substantives
Words hidden in the diagram: diabeł, Gambia, gips, głowa, igła, kawa, kieł, magia, miasto, pies, pisk, pismo, tik, wino, Wisła. In fact, smog is also a Polish word, as well as oni and some others.
The Polish l is alveolar (not dental) and it is not velarized. A very near sound is present in Italian, Spanish, French or German, and in British English before a vowel (light l), like in lamp – its Polish rendering, lampa, has a very similar l. American l is velarized (dark) – you must avoid such pronunciation in Polish. As the l is a sonorant, it does not undergo the final devoicing. Examples: ale ‘but’ (not ‘ale’, a sort of beer!), las ‘forest’, pole ‘field’, lala, lalka ‘doll’ (both l’s should be light!), lub ‘or’ ([lup]), albo – the same meaning as lub, lubię ‘I like’ ([lub′e] – do you remember the rules concerning the final -ę and i plus vowel?), lubi ‘he / she / it likes’, lud ‘people, nation’, wilk ‘wolf’, mleko ‘milk’. Any problems with the initial cluster ml-? Remember that the last word has only two syllables: mle-ko, not m-le-ko!
The group li before a consonant or word-finally is common in Polish – even if the l is soft here, it is unimportant. Examples: lina ‘rope’, lipa ‘linden, lime-tree (Tilia)’, listopad ‘November’ ([listopat]), mali ‘little, short (men)’, stolik ‘little table’, klin ‘wedge’, klips ‘clip’.
The group li plus a vowel is rare and it is possible only in loanwords. It is read [lj] then: liana ‘liana’ ([ljana]), biblia ‘(Holy) Bible’ ([biblja]).
The Polish r is an alveolar vibrant and it resembles the Italian and Scottish ones. When confronted with Spanish sounds, it is between r in pero and rr, r- in perro, rey. A similar sound is the American (not British) intervocalic t in get out, no matter. Sometimes you can hear such a sound in German and French (r roulé) – but the common German uvular r or those French ones (r grasseyé, r dorsal) would be perceived in Polish as a defect of speech, as well as the common English r. So, you should try to learn the correct pronunciation of r even if it is really difficult. The proper r is, as a rule, the last sound that Polish children get under control. If you have problems, you must teach your tongue how to jar; start your trial with the group atta… attta… atra (each t must be separated). I used this method when I was a child – with good results.
Once you can imitate this difficult sound, try these words: traf ‘chance, hazard, fortune’, tran ‘cod-liver oil’, baran ‘ram, tup, sheep-male’, rak ‘crayfish living in fresh water, Astacus’, rano ‘morning’, traktor ‘tractor’ (remember not to simplify the final -or!), dar ‘gift’ (a little bit archaic, now we use prezent in the same meaning), ar ‘are, 100 square metres’, metr ‘metre’ (should be monosyllabic!), wiatr ‘wind’ (monosyllabic: [w′atr]), brat ‘brother’, stara ‘old (e.g. woman)’, Robert (male name, remember of both r’s, never say as if in English!), ogród ‘garden’ ([ogrut]), teraz ‘now’ ([teras]), kura ‘hen’, krowa ‘cow’, ogier ‘stallion, horse male’ ([og′er]), bóbr ‘beaver (Castor fiber)’, krótki ‘short, not long’, radio ([radjo]) ‘radio’.
The r is a sonorant, so it should not become voiceless at the end of the word. But, if it stays after another consonant, especially voiceless, it can be voiceless as well (but it is still a vibrant) – see wiatr, metr. Better keep the r fully voiced in bóbr [bubr]. You must not say voiceless r in dar, ar, traktor, Robert.
The Polish r does not like the vowel i: the group ri is possible only in borrowings (even if enough numerous…), also ir is rare. Examples for syllabic ri: riposta ‘riposte, retort, repartee’, for non-syllabic ri (pronounced [rj] before a vowel): Maria (female name, Mary; [marja]), geometria ‘geometry’ ([geometrja]: be careful and do not read it in the English way).
The character y is used for a vowel, not for a consonant in Polish (contrary examples, like yeti, are very few and highly exceptional even in borrowings). The vowel y is not i (unfortunately…). It is unrounded (like i, e, a and unlike o, u), high (like i, u and unlike e, a, o) and central (like a and unlike front i, e and back u, o). I imagine it is very hard to be imitated correctly, especially when you have never heard it (try my records for example).
None of such languages like English, French, German, Spanish, Italian has a similar sound. Turkish, Japanese, Ukrainian and especially Russian have a vowel resembling the Polish y except it is more back there. When you are speaking i, the back of your tongue is going to the point A. When you are speaking u, it is going to the point B. And when you are speaking y, it should be going to the point C that lies between A and B.
British English has some central vowels but none is as high as the Polish y. The lowest is o, u in but, mother, love, higher are a, ear, ir, ur in about, earth, girl, fur – the Polish y is still higher (there are not such sounds in American). I think the English sound (“flat”) i before the dark l could be accepted as Polish y, cf. trill, ill, silk. Try to say mill but without touching of the gums with the tongue – you should say Polish mył ‘he was washing’. Try the same trick with bill – and you will say był ‘he was’. Now, if you can speak British English (without retroflexion of your tongue), say bird and add Polish -ło: you have just spoken bydło ‘cattle’ (err… or something in this style). If you know French, Italian or Spanish, try to start with close e (é) that seems to be the nearest sound to the Polish y in those languages (but it is absolutely not the same vowel).
If you think that such a strange vowel is rather rare, you are wrong. It is a very important Polish sound, it forms some very frequent nominal endings. So, you have to learn it well, and you must not mix it with i. You will not manage to find this vowel at the beginning of a word, even the name of the letter y is often read igrek, not just y (in colloquial speech it is y however). It cannot follow any soft consonant – sometimes we even say that the y is a hard vowel. Also k, g, l and vowels a, e, i, o, u/ó do not like the following y (but there are rare exceptions; you do not even need to know them, but if you are curious, take a look at my grammar pages). Anyway, the -y ending is impossible after k, g, l. Here are more examples for the y: syn ‘son’, kuzyn ‘cousin (male)’, kuzynka ‘she-cousin’, Edyta ‘Edith (female name)’ (read it correctly, not in the English way; Polish has not “th”-like sounds), nowy ‘new (about a man)’, mały ‘small, little (about a man)’ (cf. also mało ‘few, little’), młody ‘young’ (mind the initial cluster mł-), inny ‘other, different’, ładny ‘pretty, beautiful’, byk ‘bull’, buty ‘boots, shoes’, dywan ‘carpet’, indyk ‘turkey(-cock)’, ty ‘thou, you’ (towards one person), wy ‘you’ (towards some persons), my ‘we’, luty ‘February’. The vowel cannot follow the j, but yj is OK.: myję ‘I am washing’ ([myje]), ryj ‘snout, “pigs face”’, also ryj ‘dig!, burrow!, root!’ (a pig roots with its snout, isn’t it?).
Warning! Beginning from here I will not give you English renderings of all new Polish words. Search for them on the left frame – or open it in a new window.
English has one plural ending -s (even if there are some exceptions: child – children, tooth – teeth etc.) while Polish has some. The most popular of them is -y. When the singular form ends in -a, you should cut it off. Take a look at the following list:
| baba – baby | bat – baty | bóbr – bobry | but – buty | data – daty |
| diabeł – diabły | głowa – głowy | kieł – kły | kogut – koguty | łapa – łapy |
| mat – maty | mata – maty | muł – muły | ogród – ogrody | pies – psy |
| sad – sady | stopa – stopy | stół – stoły | wanna – wanny | wiatr – wiatry |
Sometimes different nouns have the same plural – can you find the example? And can you make the plural form of adidas, Anna, ar, atlas, autobus, baran, dar, dom, dywan, Edyta, Ewa, faza, film, giełda, igła, Iwona, jama, jaz, jazda, kawa, klin, klips, kot, koza, krowa, kura, lampa, las, liana, lina, lipa, listopad, łan, łata, mama, mapa, małpa, mat, mata, meta, metr, nos, obiad, ogier, pała, panna, prezent, riposta, sanna, sosna, staw, sufit, teatr, temat, traf, traktor, waza, winda, woda, zasada? Note them and check at the beginning of the next lesson – but not earlier than you will have finished with this lesson.
Some facts should be kept in mind.
And what about buk, byk, dług, figa, fiołek, główka, igrek, indyk, kuzynka, lalka, łapka, łatka, łuk, mak, matka, noga, paka, pałka, piasek, piesek, pisk, podłoga, ptak, rak, słoik, stolik, stołek, suka, tik, wilk, wnuk? Still the k, g do not like the following y! Yes, this is right, and that’s why the y changes into i after k, g. You must memorize it! Of course those k, g changes into soft. Hard k, g plus hard y gives soft k, g plus soft i – isn’t it strange? But true! Leave the rest to philosophers. So, we have buki, byki, długi, figi, … Mind the word główka – it still has ó in plural: główki. Some words lose their movable e – fiołki, piaski, pieski, stołki, some do not – igreki.
And what about bal, balia, biblia, kij, lala, lekcja, maj, Maja, Maria, pokój, ryj, słój, ul? I am sure you remember that both l or j cannot precede the y in Polish. (Of course you remember that li, ri before a vowel mean [lj], [rj]). We have another ending for these words. It is the ending -e. The plurals are then: bale, balie, biblie, kije, lale, lekcje, maje, Maje, Marie, pokoje, ryje, słoje, ule (mind pokój, słój – pokoje, słoje!).
The following diagram contains Polish names of 16 animals (note that crustaceans and birds are animals as well), written horizontally, vertically or diagonally, in any direction. Can you find them all? The list of these words is given in the next lesson.
| A | P | I | E | S | A | Ł | A | M |
| B | M | T | M | A | Z | K | O | T |
| Ó | K | U | A | W | O | O | U | K |
| B | Y | D | Ł | O | K | G | L | U |
| Ó | D | A | P | R | O | I | T | R |
| B | N | I | A | K | W | E | R | A |
| R | I | K | Y | B | A | R | A | N |
Please repeat the material until you are sure you can do all what you should.
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