# Proszę bardzo (pronunciation)



## jos.dan

Hello everyone! I'm new in Polish and I'm still getting the hang of pronunciation. To be more specific, I'd like to know the IPA transcription of the phrase "Proszę bardzo". In Forvo, there are already some recordings by natives, but they sound all different (to my ears, at least). The first pronunciation sounds like /ˌprɔ.ʂɛ 'bard.zɔ*v*/, the second one like /ˌprɔ.ʂɛ*ŋ* 'bard.zɔ/ and the other ones like /ˌprɔ.ʂɛ 'bard.zɔ/ (what I expected to hear since I read that on a website), but these ones have a negative rating, possibly meaning they are wrong. So what's the proper pronunciation?
Thanks in advance 

P.S.: I'm not an expert on the IPA, so my transcriptions are surely wrong


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## Ben Jamin

jos.dan said:


> Hello everyone! I'm new in Polish and I'm still getting the hang of pronunciation. To be more specific, I'd like to know the IPA transcription of the phrase "Proszę bardzo". In Forvo, there are already some recordings by natives, but they sound all different (to my ears, at least). The first pronunciation sounds like /ˌprɔ.ʂɛ 'bard.zɔ*v*/, the second one like /ˌprɔ.ʂɛ*ŋ* 'bard.zɔ/ and the other ones like /ˌprɔ.ʂɛ 'bard.zɔ/ (what I expected to hear since I read that on a website), but these ones have a negative rating, possibly meaning they are wrong. So what's the proper pronunciation?
> Thanks in advance
> 
> P.S.: I'm not an expert on the IPA, so my transcriptions are surely wrong


The model pronunciation (very formal or theatrical) is 'prošę bardzo', with 'o' and 'a' pronounced exactly like in Spanish (short open vowels), 'š' like 'sc'in Italian prosciutto, 'dz' like 'z' in Italian 'azzurro' (one sound). The 'ę' sound is pronounced like 'ain' in French 'train'. The whole word 'proszę' resembling closely French 'prochain', but with stress on the first syllable. 
However, the usual colloquial pronunciation replaces 'ę' with 'e', 'e' being like in Spanish 'te'.


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## lukis421

Ben Jamin said:


> The model pronunciation (very formal or theatrical) is 'prošę bardzo', with 'o' and 'a' pronounced exactly like in Spanish (short open vowels), 'š' like 'sc'in Italian prosciutto, 'dz' like 'z' in Italian 'azzurro' (one sound). The 'ę' sound is pronounced like 'ain' in French 'train'. The whole word 'proszę' resembling closely French 'prochain', but with stress on the first syllable.
> However, the usual colloquial pronunciation replaces 'ę' with 'e', 'e' being like in Spanish 'te'.



I'm sorry, but this is wrong. The nasal sound in the word 'train' is realized as [æ̃] in standard French, which does not occur in Polish and is *completely *different from the polish ę - [ɛ̃], which, in turn, cannot be found in standard French. That is why it is best to learn and use the IPA, as it is the most accurate system for reflecting the sounds of a language.

To answer the original question, the day-to-day pronunciation would be [ˈprɔʃɛ] [ˈbar.d͡zɔ]. The more traditional, often seen as posh and over the top, would be [ˈprɔʃ*ɛ̃*] [ˈbar.d͡zɔ].

EDIT: Check wiktionary for audio recordings, they are accurate.


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## jos.dan

both answers are very helpful, thank you very much 

By the way, in standard Spanish (an almost all dialects) we don't have the vowel /ɛ/ naturally. Instead, our "e" is more closed – /e/ (like the first part of the English diphthong "ay" as in "day"). We don't have /ɔ/ either, but /o/ instead. It's off topic but I just wanted to let you know


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## Lorenc

If you want to hear my completely unauthoritative opinion, I basically agree with what lukis421 has written but I'd like to make the following qualifications:

Especially in a comparative linguistic context I'd transcribe _proszę bardzo_ as [ˌprɔ.ʂɛ 'bard.zɔ] (regular pronunciation) or [ˌprɔ.ʂɛw̃ 'bard.zɔ] (traditional/posh/hypercorrect/emphatic/formal/marked/over the top pronunciation -- pick the description you like best). Polish sz is better transcribed by [ʂ] than by [ʃ] (you should hear that is sounds a bit different from, e.g., English sh). The nasal pronunciation of ę is made up by a oral, non-nasal component and a nasalised glide which in this case may be transcribed as [w̃]. In other, non-word-final contexts such as in the word _gęś_ the nasal component has a possible allophone which may be transcribed as [ j̃ ].
About the pronunciations on forvo. The one by user adamtwar is essentially [ˌprɔ.ʂɛ 'bard.zɔ] but, as you noticed, there seems to be an [f] sound at the end of the recording; this is probably just noise or an artifact due to compression of the signal, just disregard it. User dozer77 uses the 'traditional' pronunciation with nasality while the other three users (zbigniew_, Edyta, LadyAsia) use the standard pronunciation and are 100% okay in my opinion.


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## jos.dan

Thanks a lot Lorenc, that makes everything clear


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## wrotycz

Pronouncing /ɛ̃/ (ę) at the end of word is incorrect, should be /ɛ/ (e). That's good sign as it's even easier.
As @lukis421 said, it's posh, cheesy and over the top but it is not traditional, it's just hypercorrect.


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## Eirwyn

It's kind of sad that final ę's simply denasalized without leaving some sort of sandhi. It would be much more interesting if they evolved there the same way they did within word borders.


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