Orthography
The Polish alphabet, like many other European languages, is based on the Latin alphabet with the letters q, v, and x being usually absent and used occasionally in foreign words. It also includes letters with certain diacritic signs: the acute accent (ć, ń, ó, ś, ź); the overdot (ż); the tail for the nasal sounds (ą, ę) and the stroke (ł). Altogether the Polish alphabet consists of 32 letters; 9 vowels and 23 consonants. Additionally, in Polish orthography we can find digraphs, which are pairs of characters pronounced as a single sound that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. In Polish, the following digraphs are used: ch, cz, dz, dż, dż, rz, and sz. There is also one trigraph in the Polish language: dzi.
As if that was not enough, in Polish some characters are pronounced the same, for example: u and ó, rz and ż, ch and h, and the difference between them is purely orthographic. There are some general principles regarding spelling, but because of many exceptions, mastering spelling can be difficult even for native users of the Polish language.
Pronunciation
Pronunciation in Polish is regular. Vowels are pronounced similarly to their counterparts in many other European languages, and once you learn what sounds the consonants correspond to, you will be able to pronounce the words correctly even when you read them for the first time. Moreover, unlike, for example, in the Russian language, in Polish the stress is almost always placed on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable.
So why is Polish considered so difficult to pronounce? Because of the most troublesome feature, which is complex consonant clusters – connected consonants with no vowel between them. This phenomenon can be found in many languages, but while in English there can be a series of no more than three consonants, in Polish words we can see even five consonants appearing as one cluster. Their pronunciation can be really difficult for foreigners, who look at Polish words, and can see only an incomprehensible series of consonants. Below, we have gathered some of the hard-to-pronounce Polish words to illustrate this problem.
The most difficult words to pronounce in the Polish language
Żółć
This word may be short, but it is a real head-scratcher for people who have never learned Polish because it is written with only polish letters modified with diacritic signs. The good news is that if we learn to read these letters, pronunciation is not as difficult as in many other Polish words. “Żółć” means “bile”.
Szeleścić
This word can be hard to pronounce, but makes a great onomatopoeia because it means “to rustle” and thanks to the consonants sz and ś it sounds like the sound it describes.
Źdźbło
The meaning of the word is “a grass-stalk” and it consists of five consonants and only one vowel at the very end, making it very difficult to pronounce. Fortunately, the consonants “dź” are a digraph, which means they are pronounced by a single sound.
Pszczyna
Pszczyna is a town in the Silesian Voivodeship with over 25,000 inhabitants. Pronouncing its name is problematic due to the cluster of three consonants (p and digraphs sz and cz) at the very beginning of the word.
Szczęście
Ironically, it means “happiness”, something foreigners trying to learn to spell and pronounce this word certainly don’t feel. The word begins with two Polish digraphs (sz and cz), followed by the letter e with a diacritic sign also called a nasal e sound, then another letter with a diacritic sign (ś), another digraph (ni), and finally the last letter e, the only one that should not be a problem for students trying to learn Polish.
Księżniczka
The word means “princess” and sounds surprisingly unpleasant to the ears of a foreigner. This is the fault of many consonants in the word, which make it very difficult to pronounce.
Szymankowszczyzna
Szymankowszczyzna is a village in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship with one of the longest place names in Poland. It is a real challenge to pronounce it mainly due to the cluster of consonants in the middle of the word (w and the digraphs sz and cz).
Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz
This is the full name that appears in the cult Polish film How I Unleashed the Second World War from 1969. The character of the movie is taken to the prison and this is how he introduces himself to the Nazi officer responsible for keeping track of the prisoners’ identities. Then, when asked about his place of residence, he follows up with “Chrząszczyżewoszyce, Łękołody district” to upset the officers trying to write it down even more.
Gżegżółka
This Polish word is hard to pronounce, but also considered the most difficult to write. The spelling of this word is very unusual and full of exceptions to the orthography rules, so there is no other option but to learn it by heart. Fortunately, you will not see this word too often, because it is an outdated term for “cuckoo” which in Polish is now called “kukułka”.
Szczebrzeszyn
Szczebrzeszyn is the name of a town in the Lubelskie Voivodeship, with a population of less than 5,000. Due to its complicated name, Szczebrzeszyn is often called the “Capital City of Polish Language” and every August a literary festival is organized there.
Chrząszcz
Learning the pronunciation of this word is one of the biggest challenges in the Polish language. It simply means a beetle, but memorizing its meaning is the least of the problem. This word is written only with digraphs (ch, rz, and sz, cz) separated by one vowel – nasal a sound, i.e. the letter a with a tail.
Interesting fact: the last two words from our list appear in a well-known poem by Jan Brzechwa, which is also one of the most popular tongue twisters in Poland: “W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie”. This means “In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed, for which Szczebrzeszyn is famous”.
