Just like in French, accents matter a lot in Polish. In the last post, we covered how this is true for some unusual consonant combinations that show up in Polish words. Today, however, we’ll be focusing more on vowels and accents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first element that can cause some difficulty to spellers is the ogonek. This diacritical marking is represented by a small hook, and its name is Polish for “little tail”. The ogonek affects the letters ‘e’ and ‘a’ in English, though they are not always marked with the accent in the dictionary. The letters are nasalized when marked with an ogonek–‘\u0119’ and ‘\u0105’ are pronounced \\ en \\ and \\ \u022fn \\ respectively. Based on the context, spellers should consider spelling these sounds with ‘\u0119’ and ‘\u0105’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some example words are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second piece that could trip spellers up is the ‘l with a stroke’ (\u0142). The l with stroke generally makes the \\ w \\ sound. When it is placed after a vowel, it makes the \\ u\u0307 \\ sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This rule is demonstrated in the following words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are two exceptions to the rule about the ‘l with a stroke’. These words are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n