The Polish Alphabet: All 32 Letters and How to Pronounce Them

The Polish alphabet looks scary for about a week. After that, it is one of the easiest parts of the language: Polish is written almost exactly as it sounds, so once you know the 32 letters and a handful of letter pairs, you can read any word aloud – even Szczebrzeszyn. I have taught the alphabet to students from 70+ countries for more than 10 years, and this is the order that works.

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One printable page with all 32 letters, the letter pairs and an example word for each. No sign-up needed.

How many letters are in the Polish alphabet?

There are 32 letters. Twenty-three look like English letters, and nine carry an accent mark – a tail (ą, ę), a stroke (ł), a dot (ż) or a little line on top (ć, ń, ó, ś, ź). These are separate letters, not decorations: laska is a walking stick, łaska is mercy. The letters q, v and x only turn up in foreign words and names, like Quiz or VAT.

The Polish alphabet: all 32 letters

Here is every letter in alphabetical order, with how to say it and an example word. In the respellings, capital letters mark the stressed syllable, “kh” is the rough sound in Scottish “loch” and “ih” is the short i in “bit”.

Notice ząb (zomp), łóżko (WOOSH-ko) and śnieg (shnyek): a consonant at the end of a word, or before a voiceless one, loses its voice – b sounds like p, ż like sh, g like k. You will do this naturally after a few weeks of listening; nobody will misunderstand you if you don’t.

Which Polish letters look English but sound different?

Seven letters cause most of the early mistakes, because they look familiar: w is v, ł is w, j is y, c is ts, y is the short i in “bit”, h is the rough kh, and r is rolled. Learn these seven first and half of the “impossible” words suddenly become readable.

• Wrocław – VROTS-wahf, not “Rock-law”
• jajko – YAY-ko, not “jadge-ko”
• cena (price) – TSEH-na, not “seena”
• ryba (fish) – RIH-ba, not “rye-ba”

How do you pronounce sz, cz, rz and the other letter pairs?

Seven letter pairs are read as one sound: sz = sh, cz = ch, rz = zh (exactly like ż), ch = kh (exactly like h), dz = ds as in “adds”, dż = j as in “jam” and dź = a soft j. This is the trick behind scary-looking words: szcz is just two sounds, sh + ch, as in “fresh cheese”.

How do you pronounce ą and ę?

Ą and ę are nasal vowels: you say o or e and let some air out through your nose, a bit like French “bon” and “vin”. Before most consonants they simply sound like “on/om” and “en/em”: ręka (REN-ka), ząb (zomp). At the very end of a word, ę is usually just e – dziękuję is jen-KOO-yeh – while a final ą keeps a light nasal “o(w)”: idą (they go).

What is the difference between ś, ć, ź and sz, cz, ż?

Polish has two families of “sh”-like sounds. The hard ones – sz, cz, ż/rz, dż – are said with the tongue pulled back, like English sh, ch, s in “pleasure” and j. The soft ones – ś, ć, ź, dź – are said with the middle of the tongue high, as if you were smiling while you speak. They change meaning: kasza (KA-sha) is porridge, Kasia (KA-sha, soft) is a girl’s name.

Two spellings, one sound: before a vowel, the soft sounds are written with an i instead of the accent – si, ci, zi, dzi, ni. So ś in śnieg and si in siedem (SHEH-dem, seven) are the same sound. The i here only softens the letter before it.

Where does the stress go in Polish words?

On the second-to-last syllable, in almost every word: dzię-KU-ję, prze-PRA-szam, POL-ska, ko-CHA-nie. That one rule means you never have to guess, unlike in English or Russian. The exceptions are few and you can ignore them at first – some past-tense forms (BY-liś-my, we were) and a handful of Greek and Latin words (MU-zy-ka).

Watch: my free Polish alphabet class

This is a recording of my 1-hour live webinar on the Polish alphabet – every letter, the letter pairs and the sounds my students find hardest, with the chance to repeat after me.

And if you also want to write Polish by hand – the letters with tails and strokes, and the way Poles write in cursive – here is my 8-minute handwriting lesson:

Five tips to get Polish pronunciation right faster

1. Learn the seven “false friends” first – w, ł, j, c, y, h, r. They cause most misunderstandings.
2. Read aloud from day one. Polish spelling is regular, so reading aloud trains your mouth and your eyes at the same time. Start with my 50 basic Polish words with pronunciation.
3. Practise pairs: kasza / Kasia, czy / ci, laska / łaska. Hearing the difference comes before saying it.
4. Don’t fight the rolled r. A light tap of the tongue behind the teeth is enough – Poles roll it much less than people think.
5. Get one tongue-twister for fun: W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie (In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reeds). If you can read it slowly, you know the alphabet.

What comes after the alphabet?

Once you can read Polish aloud, the next step is building sentences: the first words and phrases, the verb “to be”, and the first two cases. That is exactly how my A1 Polish course – Part 1 starts – with the sounds – before taking you to real conversations. If you are curious how long the whole road takes, read my honest answer to “Is Polish hard to learn?”, and see what you need to know at the A1 level. Powodzenia! – good luck.