4 ms·

'w' - it's a hard 'v' as in 'very', 'vary'. Always, no exceptions and never anything else I've been interacting with a Polish web and got very confused because

by narag 5y ago

'w' - it's a hard 'v' as in 'very', 'vary'. Always, no exceptions and never anything else I've been interacting with a Polish web and got very confused because what happens with stand-alone w, that seems to mean in. Indeed Google Translate pronounces it as a v. First time I see a word in any language that consists only of consonants :-m

mkotowski 5y ago
It is quite funny, because when I was learning English, it was so bizarre that the first-person pronoun was only one letter (putting aside the required capitalization). On the other hand, having to write and instead of i still seems quite unwieldy to me.
- ajuc 5y ago
  Well in English it's actually 2 sounds (a+i) they just have them mixed into one letter :) Not unlike Russian where the reversed R is the same sounds just in reversed order (i+a) and it also means I. Polish prefers to have sounds separated so it's "ja". And it's never capitalized, English is very egocentric about it's pronouns :)
ajuc 5y ago
> First time I see a word in any language that consists only of consonants Polish is quite tame with these as far as Slavic languages go. "Strč prst skrz krk" is a proper sentence in Czech and Slovak :)
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Romanian has the opposite oddity: we have whole words made up of vowels, with a proper sentence like that: "Aia e o oaie" ("that is a sheep", pronounced roughly 'ah-ya ye awe wa-ye').
- carlob 5y ago
  Except in most Slavic languages r can work as a vowel. (if you are confused think about how the y in year is a vowel sound but works as a consonant in the syllable)
  - andrewshadura 5y ago
    Y in year does not represent a vowel sound.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      Phonetically, it is a vowel (a sound produced with an open vowel tract), but phonologically, it is a consonant (a sound that forms the onset of a syllable).
d1sxeyes 5y ago
English has a couple of pure examples: 'Mrs' and 'Nth' I can think of. You can extend this with exclamations/onomatopoeia (eg: 'hmm', 'shh', 'brr'), but can see that these are not 'normal words'.
- bloak 5y ago
  Interjections can contain sounds that don't occur in ordinary words. In German there's "tja", and in English there's "tsk", which is a click, quite an unusual sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_click

by narag 5y ago

mkotowski 5y ago

It is quite funny, because when I was learning English, it was so bizarre that the first-person pronoun was only one letter (putting aside the required capitalization). On the other hand, having to write and instead of i still seems quite unwieldy to me.

ajuc 5y ago
Well in English it's actually 2 sounds (a+i) they just have them mixed into one letter :) Not unlike Russian where the reversed R is the same sounds just in reversed order (i+a) and it also means I. Polish prefers to have sounds separated so it's "ja". And it's never capitalized, English is very egocentric about it's pronouns :)

ajuc 5y ago

> First time I see a word in any language that consists only of consonants Polish is quite tame with these as far as Slavic languages go. "Strč prst skrz krk" is a proper sentence in Czech and Slovak :)

tsimionescu 5y ago
Romanian has the opposite oddity: we have whole words made up of vowels, with a proper sentence like that: "Aia e o oaie" ("that is a sheep", pronounced roughly 'ah-ya ye awe wa-ye').
carlob 5y ago
Except in most Slavic languages r can work as a vowel. (if you are confused think about how the y in year is a vowel sound but works as a consonant in the syllable)
- andrewshadura 5y ago
  Y in year does not represent a vowel sound.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Phonetically, it is a vowel (a sound produced with an open vowel tract), but phonologically, it is a consonant (a sound that forms the onset of a syllable).

d1sxeyes 5y ago

English has a couple of pure examples: 'Mrs' and 'Nth' I can think of. You can extend this with exclamations/onomatopoeia (eg: 'hmm', 'shh', 'brr'), but can see that these are not 'normal words'.

bloak 5y ago
Interjections can contain sounds that don't occur in ordinary words. In German there's "tja", and in English there's "tsk", which is a click, quite an unusual sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_click