Meet Poland

Polish Phrases

Meet Poland has now launched its online Polish course. For those of you who benefit from hearing the language spoken then this course is for you. We have developed the course based on the feedback received from our website and from our own experience in learning Polish. Most audio CDs on the market are spoken far too quickly and not broken down into a simple, learnable format. Meet Poland language course is free to tryout online. You can hear Daniel learning Polish as Dagmara teaches him. It starts of very slow and easy to understand and follow. It is completely free to try out. Simply sign-up now. If you have already signed up then please login.

Just how do you pronounce Polish words?

Unlike English, Polish is pronounced phonetically. Once you understand where to break the word, and that the second-to-last syllable is always stressed, you'll do okay by keeping the following in mind. One note: if the word looks nothing like it sounds, put it down to some uniquely Polish characters not included here. The Polish alphabet does have its own surprises. If confused, just look it up in a good dictionary.

Visit our Learn Polish pages to our free listen and learn Polish guidelines.

Start with something simple:

• Yes: Tak (as in tick-'tack')
• No: Nie (as in 'nyeh'-nyeh-na-na-na)
• OK: Dobrze ('dough' plus a 'b' then 'she')

Excuse me: Przepraszam (difficult to pronounce because it includes that oh-so-not-English combo - 'p' merges into 'shey' followed by 'pra' and 'shem')

• What: Co (often used like an English 'what??' and pronounced 'tso')
• Where: Gdzie ( 'guh' and 'jay')
• When: Kiedy ( 'key yeh dey')
• Who: Kto ( 'k' and 'toe')
• Why: Dlaczego ('dlah' and 'che' and 'go')
• How: Jak ('yak'')

Poles are big on greetings. Remember how to say 'good day'. You can even say it at night - it has such universality here.

• Good day: Dzien dobry ('jean' and 'dough' plus 'bree' like the cheese)
• Hi: Czesc (use this one on friends only: 'che sh ch' but run it all together as one sound)
• Bye: Czesc (works like 'aloha' or 'ciao' or 'salut', making informal comings and goings easy)
• Good bye: Do widzenia ('dough' and 'wid zen ya' comes close enough)
• I don't speak Polish: Nie mowie po polsku ('nie' as above, 'moovie' then 'po' as in really poor, and 'pole sku')
• I speak English: Mowie po angielsku ('moovie' 'po' angielsku)
• I don't understand: Nie rozumiem ( 'nie' we know by now and 'row zoo me m' works for the operative word)
• Help me please: Prosze mi pomoc (for those unexpected tourist emergencies - note the 'prosze' making yet another appearance, 'mi' is just like 'me' in English in sound and meaning and the 'po moats' functions as the HELP signal)
• Please write that down: Prosze to napisac (when you 'nie rozumiem' but want to, stumble out 'prosze' as above then 'toe' which means it, and end with 'nah pee sach' which means write)

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