# Skan - dlaczego skan a nie sken



## LilianaB

Dlaczego pisze sie skan a nie sken i jak sie odmienia. Interesuje mnie rowniez mail, czemu mail a nie e-mail.


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## BezierCurve

Spolszczanie podobnych anglicyzmów działa dosyć wybiórczo (i zdaje się, głównie przypadkowo). Niedawno doszliśmy w podobnym wątku do wniosku, że może tutaj odgrywać pewną rolę harmonia samgłosek (jak w: "supermen" vs. "batman"). 

  Osobiście zaryzykowałbym teorię, że angielskie angielskie |æ| transformuje w polskie |a| głownie wtedy, kiedy dane słowo przywędrowało w formie pisanej, natomiast w |e| wtedy, kiedy najpierw stało się popularne w formie mówionej (np. poprzez piosenkę).


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## majlo

Sk*a*nować -> sk*a*n.
Mail jest krótsze niż e-mail.


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## LilianaB

Why skanowac, not skenowac? Do you think the phonetics is the reason? Do most people, especially in formal writing, decline those words? Do you think original pronunciation error could have been the factor? For me sken sounds better than skan, Betmen sounds better than Batman, but this is just my personal taste. I am not trying to say that people should change the way they have been pronouncing those words.


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## majlo

Why is it "scan" and  not "scen"?


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## LilianaB

Thank you. It is probably the type of question: what was first, the egg or the chicken. Do they always decline, though, skan and mail?


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## Szkot

There was a time, 50+ years ago, when the pronunciation of English 'a'  as |e| was considered 'correct' in England, and it may have been taught  to some students of English in other countries.    It continues in  German pronunciation of English words - and we sometimes joke about it,  particularly the bizarre word 'Handy' (komórka).  Perhaps it is a  generation thing.


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## LilianaB

Skan is somethng that went into use about 10 years ago, I think. Would that be possible?


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## myfakename

Szkot said:


> There was a time, 50+ years ago, when the pronunciation of English 'a'  as |e| was considered 'correct' in England, and it may have been taught  to some students of English in other countries.    It continues in  German pronunciation of English words - and we sometimes joke about it,  particularly the bizarre word 'Handy' (komórka).  Perhaps it is a  generation thing.


 Because majority of Poles are horrible in pronouncing foreign languages, especially English. For majority of them (them, because I care about my accent), bad, bat, bed and bet are all pronounced the same (bet), or it's a bit "lighter" bad & bed (pronounced bed) vs. bat & bet (pronounced bet).


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## LilianaB

They are not any worse than other nations: there is perhaps a shortage of teachers.


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## BezierCurve

> Why is it "scan" and not "scen"?



 It would be just too logical and too straightforward, if we always followed that pattern though. Compare with "bekhend". 

I can imagine first Polish learners of tennis using a form they _heard_ vs. the first Polish users of scanners, who first _read_ about the equipment.

EDIT:



> Because majority of Poles are horrible in pronouncing foreign languages, especially English.



 Again, most of the teachers of English in 1980s and 1990s learned mostly from books. There was hardly anyone who could point out the difference in pronunciation to them (using minimal pairs, for example). Still, Poles try doing their best. I remember "dilejt" as the correct way of pronouncing "delete" just a few years ago was still widely accepted


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## majlo

Oh, as for learning pronunciation, it wasn't until I went to college that I learned the correct pronunciation of the word 'butcher'. And it did come as a shock to me. 



LilianaB said:


> They are not any worse than other nations: there is perhaps a shortage of teachers.


Perhaps there's a shortage of long and short vowels and voicing at the end of the words.  And that is by no means to say that it's impossible to achieve this feat for Polish learners of English. 
But I agree we're not any worse from other nations. Check out the Japanese or French people. The former can't even pronounce /l/ and the latter frequently mispronounce English words, which sometimes does sound pretty funny. 



> I remember "dilejt" as the correct way of pronouncing "delete" just a few years ago was still widely accepted


You mean accepted by teachers? Because among the Polish people who are not well versed in English, it's still [dilejt] and I doubt it's gonna change in the near future.


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## BezierCurve

I meant people who claimed to know _some_ English.


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## marco_2

ALL IT teachers and trainers I met in my life said _dilejt_, which, of course, sounds horrible. And a short quotation from George Sliwa's book "Angielski bez błędów": W polskich szkołach zwykło się uczyć wymawiać angielską głoskę *a *jako dźwięk zbliżony do "e". Polacy, których słucham, bardzo często wymawiają więc słowa *bat, man, match, catch *itd. w taki sposób, że brzmią */bet/, */men/, */mecz/, */kecz/. Dowodem na istnienie takiej generalnej tendencji są spolszczenia angielskich słów: ang. *match *- pol. _mecz, _ang. *flash *- pol. _flesz._(...) Należy podkreślić /że taka wymowa/ obowiązywała sześćdziesiąt lat temu, dziś jest odbierana jako staromodna i pretensjonalna. (...) (Amerykanie zachowali dawniejszą wymowę "a", co słyszymy jako /ee/.


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## majlo

Jako /ee/? Czy aby na pewno? By the way, nice code switching. 

I forgot to add that Polish is also short of the ash sound.


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## marco_2

To /ee/ to taka prywatna interpretacja pana Sliwy, zresztą tłumaczy się on gęsto we wstępie, dlaczego w swojej książce zastosował znaki, jak to określił, "przybliżonej wymowy".


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

Well it's obvious that when learning a new language and new sounds one is going to approximate those sounds that do not exist in one's native language with a similar sound from one's sound repertoire that is phonetically most similar.

For example when learning the French _u_ sound or German _ü (u-umlaut_), Poles usually pronounce it as_ polskie i, _so _menu_ is ofter pronounced by Poles as _meni_...


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## dreamlike

I mean no disrespect, but Polish teachers of English have many drawbacks, their pronunciation being only the tip of the iceberg. I think the way they use English reflects the level of English-teaching in Poland, which is dire. Majlo, of course you're not at the receiving post of my post just because you're a teacher  It's more of a general point I feel at liberty to make having had the dobious pleasure to work with many teachers in past.

That being said, there are of course some good teachers, and I think there is a growing number of them.


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## Brioche

myfakename said:


> Because majority of Poles are horrible in pronouncing foreign languages, especially English. For majority of them (them, because I care about my accent), bad, bat, bed and bet are all pronounced the same (bet), or it's a bit "lighter" bad & bed (pronounced bed) vs. bat & bet (pronounced bet).



Well, Polish has only 6 vowels, and English has 20 vowels and diphthongs.  But the Poles get their revenge on the English with cz and ć, sz and ś, ż and ź, and lovely consonantal clusters. W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi wtrzcinie.


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## majlo

dreamlike said:


> Majlo, of course you're not at the receiving post of my post just because you're a teacher



That's a relief.


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## POLSKAdoBOJU

Brioche said:


> Well, Polish has only 6 vowels, and English has 20 vowels and diphthongs.  But the Poles get their revenge on the English with cz and ć, sz and ś, ż and ź, and lovely consonantal clusters. W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi wtrzcinie.


There are *eight *vowel sounds in Polish. You are forgetting the two nasal vowels.


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