Polish speaking areas

Polish speaking areas.

  • Poland
    • Polish writing

Polish is spoken/understood in the border regions neighbouring:

  • Lithuania
  • Belarus
  • Ukraine

    • this as a result of the annexation of territory after WWII to Poland.

Spoken Polish

There are no real dialects in Polish with standard Polish spoken and understood by all Polish speakers without any problems.

Polish language outside of Poland

Due to the amount of historical migration of Poles over the centuries and most notably since joining the EU, there are large Polish speaking communities in most G20 countries.

Polish Latin Alphabet

Polish uses a lot of accented letters (see below).

Polish also uses a lot of digraphs (see below).

The Polish Latin script does not use Q, V or X.

Additions to Latin Alphabet (accents)

To type accents with ALT codes, hold down the ALT key, then on the numeric keypad type the three or four digits listed here. However not with laptops, ALT codes only work with the numeric keypad, NOT the row of numbers across the top of your keyboard, as on laptops.

A with ogonek
   ą      Ą  

C with acute accent
   ć      Ć  

E with ogonek
   ę      Ę  

ch digraph
   ch        

ci digraph
   ci        

cz digraph
   cz        

dz digraph
   dz        

L with stroke
   ł      Ł  

N with acute accent
   ń      Ń  

O with acute accent
   ó      Ó  

dzi digraph
   dzi        

dź digraph
   dź        

dż digraph
   dż        

ni digraph
   ni        

S with acute accent
   ś      Ś  

Z with acute accent
   ź      Ź  

rz digraph
   rz        

si digraph
   si        

sz digraph
   sz        

szcz digraph
   szcz        

zi digraph
   zi        

Full Norwegian alphabet

a
   a      A  

a with ogonek
   ą      Ą  

b
   b      B  

c
   c      C  

c with acute
   ć      Ć  

d
   d      D  

e
   e      E  

e with ogonek
   ę      Ę  

f
   f      F  

g
   g      G  

h
   h      H  

i
   i      I  

j
   j      J  

k
   k      K  

l
   l      L  

l with stroke
   ł      Ł  

m
   m      M  

n
   n      N  

n with acute accent
   ń      Ń  

o
   o      O  

o with acute accent
   ó      Ó  

p
   p      p  

r
   r      R  

s
   s      S  

s with acute accent
   ś      Ś  

t
   t      T  

u
   u      U  

w
   w      W  

y
   y      Y  

z
   z      Z  

z with acute accent
   ź      Ź  

z with dot
   Ż      ż  

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Polish Translation Service
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Polish Translation sample:

Wszyscy ludzie rodzą się wolni i równi pod względem swej godności i swych praw. Są oni obdarzeni rozumem i sumieniem i powinni postępować wobec innych w duchu braterstwa.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Polish Speaking countries

Poland.

Indo-European Language group

European language groups

Indo-European > Slavic > Western

 

Difficulty in learning Polish as a native English speaker

The Defense Language Institute categorizes Polish as difficult (level 3, of 4 levels)

Polish letter writing samples

  • Letter (formal)
  • Letter (informal)