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The Polish alphabet: how to read every letter
Polish looks unreadable for about one evening. Then you learn that it is spelled almost exactly as it is said — far more consistently than English — and the wall turns into a short list of things to memorise. This guide is that list.
The Polish alphabet: cheat sheet
All 32 letters: tap one to hear it
Each card gives the letter's sound and a word to hear it in. Grey letters read the way they look; blue ones look familiar and sound different; red ones are new.
Your browser has no Polish voice, so the sound may be missing or wrong. Chrome and Safari have one; on Android, add Polish under Settings → Text-to-speech.
- A a a, as in 'father' mama · mum
- Ą ą nasal o, as in French 'bon' mąka · flour
- B b b brat · brother
- C c ts, as in 'cats' cena · price
- Ć ć a soft ch, between 'ch' and 'ts' być · to be
- D d d dom · house
- E e e, as in 'bed' ser · cheese
- Ę ę nasal e; plain e at the end of a word ręka · hand
- F f f film · film
- G g g, as in 'go' góra · mountain
- H h h, rough, as in Scottish 'loch' herbata · tea
- I i ee, as in 'see'; softens the consonant before it imię · first name
- J j y, as in 'yes' jutro · tomorrow
- K k k kot · cat
- L l l, as in 'let' lato · summer
- Ł ł w, as in 'water' mały · small
- M m m mleko · milk
- N n n noc · night
- Ń ń ny, as in 'canyon' koń · horse
- O o o, as in 'pot' okno · window
- Ó ó oo — exactly the same as u król · king
- P p p pies · dog
- R r rolled r ryba · fish
- S s s syn · son
- Ś ś soft sh, as in 'sheep' with a smile środa · Wednesday
- T t t tata · dad
- U u oo, as in 'book' ucho · ear
- W w v woda · water
- Y y i, as in 'bit', said further back ty · you
- Z z z zupa · soup
- Ź ź soft zh źle · badly
- Ż ż zh, as in 'measure' żaba · frog
Letter pairs that spell one sound
- Ch h, rough — the same as h chleb · bread
- Cz ch, as in 'chair' czas · time
- Sz sh, as in 'shop' szkoła · school
- Rz zh — the same as ż rzeka · river
- Dz dz, as in 'adze' dzwon · bell
- Dź soft j, as in 'jeep' dźwięk · sound
- Dż j, as in 'jam' dżem · jam
- Ci ć before a vowel ciocia · aunt
- Si ś before a vowel siostra · sister
- Zi ź before a vowel zima · winter
- Ni ń before a vowel nie · no / not
´ marks the stressed vowel.
One letter, one sound
This is the rule the whole alphabet rests on. A Polish letter is pronounced the same way in every word it appears in. There is no silent e, no letter that changes its mind depending on the word, nothing to look up. Once you know what a letter sounds like, you can read any word containing it — including words you have never seen and do not understand.
That is why reading comes before everything else in a Polish course. You can read aloud correctly long before you understand what you are reading, and that is not a waste: it is what lets you learn words by ear afterwards.
dom
house — read exactly as written
kot
cat
The letters that trick the eye
Polish uses the Latin alphabet, so a few letters look like ones you know and sound like something else. These are worth learning first, because misreading them is what makes a word unrecognisable to a Pole.
| Letter | Sounds like | Example |
|---|---|---|
| w | v | woda |
| ł | w, as in 'water' | mały |
| j | y, as in 'yes' | jutro |
| c | ts | cena |
| ch | h | chleb |
| rz | zh, the same as ż | rzeka |
| sz | sh | szkoła |
| cz | ch, as in 'chair' | czas |
| ó | u — identical to u | góra |
Two letters, one sound
Polish writes some single sounds with a pair of letters. They never split: sz is one sound, not s followed by z. Treat each pair as a letter in its own right and the words stop looking long.
There is one pair of sounds Polish spells two different ways for historical reasons: rz and ż sound identical, and so do u and ó. Which spelling a word takes has to be learned with the word — this is the one place Polish spelling asks you to remember something.
szkoła
school
czekam
I am waiting
dzień dobry
good morning / good afternoon
ą and ę: the nasal vowels
The hook under a and e does not make a new letter — it makes the vowel nasal, the way French does in 'bon'. Say the vowel and let the end of it go through your nose. At the end of a word ę is usually softened almost to a plain e, which is why Poles say 'proszę' with a much lighter ending than it looks.
są
they are
proszę
please / here you are
The stress is almost always in the same place
Polish stress falls on the second-to-last syllable. Not sometimes — nearly always. This is an enormous gift compared with Russian or Ukrainian, where stress has to be learned word by word: in Polish you can stress a word you have never heard and be right.
ko-BIE-ta
woman — stress on the second-to-last syllable
dzię-KU-ję
thank you
Listening drill: sz or ś?
These pairs sound alike to an English ear, and to a Pole they are different words: kasza is porridge, Kasia is a girl. Press Start, listen and pick the letter you heard.
The pairs in the drill
| kasza | sz | porridge |
| Kasia | ś / si | Kasia (a name) |
| proszę | sz | please |
| prosię | ś / si | piglet |
| czy | cz | whether (question word) |
| ci | ć / ci | to you |
| leczy | cz | heals |
| leci | ć / ci | flies |
| żaba | ż / rz | frog |
| rzeka | ż / rz | river |
| źle | ź / zi | badly |
| zima | ź / zi | winter |
| mąka | ą | flour |
| męka | ę | torment |
| są | ą | they are |
| ręka | ę | hand |
| my | y | we |
| mi | i | to me |
| był | y | he was |
| bił | i | he hit |
| mały | ł | small |
| lato | l | summer |
| łapa | ł | paw |
| las | l | forest |
Mistakes people make
ш-кола → szkoła
sz is one sound, not two letters read in turn. Reading it as s-z is what makes a Polish word sound like nothing at all.
woda (read with v-as-in-'w') → woda
Polish w is the sound English writes as v. 'Woda' starts like 'vodka' — which is the same word.
dobze → dobrze
rz sounds exactly like ż, so your ear is no help. This word keeps the r of dobry: dobrze.
Check yourself
How do you read the w in 'woda'?
Answer
Polish w is always the v sound.
Which syllable is stressed in 'kobieta'?
Answer
The second-to-last, like almost every Polish word.
Do 'ó' and 'u' sound different?
Answer
They sound the same; only the spelling differs, and it has to be learned with each word.
Turn this into something you can actually say.
Practise this in Jasny Polski →Free to start. No card needed.
Questions people ask
How many letters does the Polish alphabet have?
32. It is the Latin alphabet without q, v and x, plus nine letters with diacritics: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź and ż. The digraphs sz, cz, rz, ch, dz, dź and dż are not counted as separate letters, though each spells a single sound.
Is Polish pronunciation hard?
It is hard to say and easy to read — the opposite of English. The consonant clusters take a few weeks of mouth training, but you will never be unsure how a written word is pronounced, because spelling and sound match.
Where do I type ą, ę, ł and ż?
With the Polish (programmer's) keyboard layout, hold right Alt and press the base letter: Alt+a gives ą, Alt+e gives ę, Alt+l gives ł, Alt+z gives ż and Alt+x gives ź. It is the layout almost every Pole uses.
Words to practise this on
Read next
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- być — the Polish verb 'to be' The full present tense of być, why Polish keeps ‘jestem’ where Russian drops it, and the case trap in ‘jestem studentem’
- Polish numbers from 0 to 100 Polish numbers 0 to 100 with pronunciation, the dwa/dwie split, and how to answer ‘Ile masz lat?’