# pronunciation: word final -e vs -y



## Lorenc

I think for Italian speakers like me a particularly difficult point of Polish pronunciation is correctly distinguishing word-final _-e_ vs _-y_, e.g. in adjectival endings _dobry_ vs _dobre. _For word-final _-y_ (in IPA usually transcribed as /ɨ/, although I believe that /ɘ/ might be a better description) I use pretty much a standard Italian `e' (in IPA /e/) and I believe it's a quite acceptable rendition; in other words, I pronounce the Polish word _rany_ as the Italian word _rane_ , Polish _palmy_ as Italian _palme_. More difficult is word-final (unstressed) Polish e /ɛ/, which I would pronounce the same as -y. I recorded myself reading the rhyme 'Lokomotywa' by Julian Tuwin, and I would be very glad to hear what people on the forum think of it, especially (but, of course, not exclusively) concerning this feature. I believe I've lapsed to my -e/-y confusion at times, although I'd like to hear how noticeable it is. I used a relatively long recording because individual words or very short phrases are not very indicative of my 'normal' speech ('normal' in quotes because I only speak Polish to myself). Any comment or suggestion is welcome!


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## jasio

Ciao, Lorenc,

With somewhat careless pronunciation, they may be rendered similarly indeed, especially that they are in an unstressed position - and with somewhat neutral vowel being pronounced, the listener can derive from the context which specific vowel s/he should hear. However in general the final "e" is somewhat more open than the final "y". 

For our ear, in case of the native pronunciation, the difference between "dobry dzień" i "dobre dni" is quite well audiable, at least unless the speaker murmurs too much.

As for your "Lokomotywa", it was surprisingly good, and in many fragments I couldn't spot a foreign accent - although indeed, "dyszy" immediately acquired my immediate attention, so did "każdym kołem", where suffixes sounded too similar to each other. One consistent flaw which I observed was that palatalised consonants (ć, dź, ś, ź) should have been palatalised even stronger, so they differ more clearly from "cz, dż, sz, ż/rz". In case of the former try to produce the consonants raising the central part of the tongue, while in case of the latter most of the toungue should lie flat and only the tip is raised, sometimes rounding the lips may also help. But this is a phenomenon quite common in foreigners' speach as it's easier to explain to a Pole that, say, English "sh" is in a sense between "sz" and "ś" than to explain a foreigner the opposite.

The same goes for i/y differentiation. Polish "i" resembles a short version of the English "ee", with Polish "y" is on the opposite side of English "i" (as in "bid") in the "Polish i" - "English i/bid" - "Polish y" chain. You may try to pronounce Italian "i" with the tongue lying completely flat in all positions of the vowel. In either case, "e" should be more open than "i" or "y".


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## jasio

jasio said:


> One consistent flaw which I observed was that palatalised consonants (ć, dź, ś, ź) should have been palatalised even stronger, so they differ more clearly from "cz, dż, sz, ż/rz".


As an afterthought, what came to my mind that this description may not be clearest for you. 

In fact, when I produce "English" sh/ch sounds, the shape of my toungue follows a horizontal tangent curve: it's low at the back then it raises and the whole front is more or less parallel and close to the palate. In case of Polish "sz/cz", it resembles more "L" or even "J" character: it's all flat down with only the tip going up, and perhaps even retroflected a bit. On the contrary, in case of Polish "ś/ć" the tongue followes a shape of a Greek lambda character ("Λ"): its low at the back, raises towards the palate around the center, and then the tip is again down touching a lower gum.


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## Lorenc

jasio said:


> although indeed, "dyszy" immediately acquired my immediate attention, so did "każdym kołem", where suffixes sounded too similar to each other. One consistent flaw which I observed was that palatalised consonants (ć, dź, ś, ź) should have been palatalised even stronger, so they differ more clearly from "cz, dż, sz, ż/rz".



Thanks a lot for your feedback, Jasio! Theoretical understanding is all fine and good but ultimately I think you need some (if possible, informed) feedback. About 'każdym kołem': yes, I agree. Thinking about it, I think for me 'każdym' fossilised into the Italianate pronunciation ~każdem. I'll try to keep in mind to pronounce the y properly in this word. 
Concerting the palatal consonants: okay, I'll try to make them as palatal as I can. 
BTW, one more point. Concerning (so-called) nasal vowels ą ę essentially I never pronounce them with any significant nasality (not in my opinion at least), not even when word-final or before fricatives. Do you think there are acceptable in the recording?


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## jasio

Lorenc said:


> Concerning (so-called) nasal vowels ą ę essentially I never pronounce them with any significant nasality (not in my opinion at least), not even when word-final or before fricatives. Do you think there are acceptable in the recording?


Nasal vowels in Polish is a well known area of urban myths. Most of the Poles believe that there are two of them just because there are two dedicated letters, "ą" and "ę". The truth is, virtually every vowel can be nasalised to an extent in certain conditions, and the two canonical vowels are often denasalised - especially "ę" - including the word ends, where the nasality is rather weak.

Nasality in Polish is much less audiable than in French. Actually you may think of the nasal vowels as of the diftongs "oą" and "eę" where the actual nasality at the end is produced with a varying intensity, depending on the phonetic context. Nasality gradually disappears from a spoken language, and nowadays you can hear a lot of educated people - including actors, announcers, MPs, scientists - who pronounce these vowels as if they were speaking a rural or uneducated jargon. Actually, there's even a phrase referring to a very correct or hypercorrect pronunciation of nasal vowels "być ą-ę" ("to be ą-ę"), which means "to be pompous/snobish". It's a bit like using a Received Pronunciation in English.

I now listened to the recording again just to focus on your nasal vowels. Although I use them more consistently than the national average and hence I'm quite sensitive in this aspect, I must say that your pronunciation was very correct. In a few places I seemed to hear that you had been fighting with your mouth trying to find the right pronunciation, but in generall it was very good and to the point. Careful, but without any exaggeration. Bravissimo.


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## Lorenc

jasio said:


> Nasal vowels in Polish is a well known area of urban myths. [...]



Thanks a lot for your feedback! And yes, I agree with your description. Perhaps you might be interested in this Quora post I wrote some time ago (autor: Lorenzo L.); in particular, in the comment section after the post there is a rather long discussion on nasality of Polish vowels (I'm taking about ą, ę). In summary my view is:
1) Some nasality is present only when ą/ę are followed by a fricative sound (s, z, sz, ż, ś, ź, ch, w,f) or word-final (ą always, ę only in formal/accurate speech and mostly for some words such as się and/or phrase-finally).
2) The actual, nasal pronunciation is best analysed phonetically by a oral, non-nasal component (which is /ɛ/ for ę and /ɔ/ for ą) followed by a (lightly) nasalized glide which may be transcribed as /w̃/ (a sort of nasalized ł sound) or /j̃/ (a sort of nasalized j sound, similar to the sound in, e.g., państwo /paj̃nstfɔ/).

BTW, I was just noticing on a Polish song that they they rhymed (or quasi-rhymed) 'show' with 'ją' (_zrobimy niezłe szoł / gdy usuniemy ją!_). Of course in songs and poetry everything is possibly (even rhyming 'eye' with 'symmetry') but still, I think there's a message to take.

A different story is nasality of `regular' Polish vowels: a,e,i,o,u. There is at least one apparently popular book (popular for university courses, that is) [D. Ostaszewska, J. Tambor Fonetyka i fonologia współczesnego języka polskiego, PWN (2000)] which describes the vowels a, e, o, u as having four variants and i, y as having two variants; for all these, one variant is a 'nasal vowel'. In practice, in this analysis (which is taken from M. Karaś, M. Madejowa, Słownik Wymowy polskiej, 1977) *every time* a vowel is followed by /n/ or /m/ it is assumed to be nasalized. To me, this seems to be either dubious, obvious or confusing when comparing with languages which have actual, bona fide nasal vowels (French, Portuguese). The system in the booklet I mentioned is used on the Polish version of wikidictionary, wikisłownik. Someone wrote a computer program which generated transcriptions of words in agreement with the system of  Ostaszewska and Tambor, so that, e.g., instytut is /ĩw̃ˈstɨtut/ (nasal 'i' followed by nasal glide), ręka is /ˈrɛ̃ŋka/ (with a supposedly nasal /ɛ/); in fact for ręka there is a recording of someone hyperpronouncing ręka with full nasality (an exaggerated and therefore wrong pronunciation to me). In this system vowels are marked as nasal absolutely at every possible occasion. For the purpose of transcribing words in a dictionary this is non-nonsensical to me; a broad, phonemic transcription should have been used.


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## haes

Dude, you pronunciation is spot on!!! You declamated that really difficult poem in close to perfect way.  I would rate it 9.8/10, really. Some small nuances when I heard "ósmem" instead of "ósmym" but fear not - this is so close to pre-war Polish  

With regard to E and I - E is pronounced with mouth wide open, like French "cinq", like a grinning clown. "Y" flows from the throat, from the place where French "r" originates. 

One again, your pronunciation is close to perfect, in my opinion. Do not fall into perfectionism, you pronounce words exceptionally well in Polish.


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## Lorenc

haes said:


> Dude, you pronunciation is spot on!!!


Thanks very much, that's very motivating to hear!  Regarding `ósmem'... yes, you're right, I think it's the same as 'każdem', because these are basic words I learned them a long time ago with a `wrong' pronunciation and I still pronounce them wrong unless I pay a lot of attention. But yes, it's probably not the end of the world, all in all


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