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ć versus ci: pronunciation

LeopejoThreads: 6 Posts: 154 Joined: Sep 16, 09	Oct 21, 09, 13:59 / #
Everywhere I read that ć and ci are just different ways to write the same sound according to orthographic rules, but they are pronounced absolutely the same (like ó - u; ż - rz). But a couple of Polish people tell me that one of them is softer than the other. So where is the truth? P.s. No, I am not asking about ć/ci vs. cz; I also do know when to write ć and when ci instead.

OsiedleRuda	Edited by: OsiedleRuda Oct 21, 09, 14:20 / #
ó and u are indeed very similar, but even then there is a slight difference between the sound, say, u mamy and Halinów, but it is very, very subtle. I disagree with ż and rz sounding exactly the same, though - Żoliborz (a Warsaw district) combines both sounds, but the ż sounds more like it's made with the lips, whereas the rz sound is made more with the tongue. I'm not a linguist, so I can't tell you exactly why this is different, but I'm sure a Wikipedia search would explain why. Likewise, with ć and ci - the sounds are different according to where they are placed in the word - e.g. pozdrawiać sounds more like "pozdrawiactz", but cipa (hehe) sounds just like it is spelled - ci. Whereas in cię it sounds more like "cije". If that makes any sense ;) The sounds are exceedingly similar, but a native speaker (or lifetime bilingual speaker such as myself) will tell the difference. I'm sorry I can't explain it better.

kiokoThreads: - Posts: 85 Joined: Jan 3, 08	Oct 21, 09, 14:46 / #
ć is short, and ci has an iiiii sound at the end. it's imposible to write the difference in any English letters, as sound ć does not exist in English. I think the best way to hear the sound is to say two words where ć/ci are at the end, like: znać and śmieci. With ć you "cut" the sound, but with ci you make it longer by saying i at the end (Polish i) But actually the only way to know the difference is to hear it said by a Polish person. The same with ś/si, like gaś/gasi.

DerevonThreads: 12 Posts: 186 Joined: Oct 11, 09	Oct 22, 09, 10:01 / #
I've never heard anyone claim that 'u' and 'ó' are pronounced differently before. Can anyone else confirm this? As for "rz" and "ż", if there is a difference it must be very subtle indeed, because to me they really sound exactly the same. Although, I imagine as a Pole you have an extra sensitive ear when it comes to discerning differences between the different ś/sz, c/cz etc sounds, since it's very important in Polish. I guess that if you don't really learn this as a child you will never be able to understand spoken Polish nearly as well as a native speaker, even if you live there for 20 years.

LeopejoThreads: 6 Posts: 154 Joined: Sep 16, 09	Edited by: Leopejo Oct 22, 09, 10:37 / #
Thank you OsiedleRuda and kioko. kioko: I think the best way to hear the sound is to say two words where ć/ci are at the end, like: znać and śmieci. With ć you "cut" the sound, but with ci you make it longer by saying i at the end (Polish i) The grammars say that ci, when not followed by a vowel, also has an "i" sound, as if it would be a (sorry for the spelling) "ći" - so there is that difference between znać and śmieci. But what about ci followed by a vowel: is ciągle pronounced different from a (made-up and again wrongly spelled, sorry) "ćągle"? OsiedleRuda: I disagree with ż and rz sounding exactly the same, though - Żoliborz (a Warsaw district) combines both sounds, but the ż sounds more like it's made with the lips, whereas the rz sound is made more with the tongue. Oh, isn't the rz in that place name pronounced sz (end of the word)? OsiedleRuda: but I'm sure a Wikipedia search would explain why. The "problem" is that Wikipedia, as all grammars I have come across, say that ć/ci, ś/si, ź/zi, ż/rz, u/ó are all pairs of identical sounds...

ZiemowitThreads: 10 Posts: 1,063 Joined: May 8, 09	Edited by: Ziemowit Oct 22, 09, 11:26 / #
To say that ć/ci, rz/ż, u/ó are different is pure phantasmagoria. Please do not believe people who say this, just take what all grammar books say about it for granted. To write "ci" instead of "ć" is a matter of convention. The pairs rz/ż, u/ó and ch/h were once pronounced differently and still are in certain dialects of Polish, but for the standard Polish the pairs are identical. To prove that, you can inspect the newspapers and books written by the group of the so-called futurists from the years 1920s who wanted to simplify the Polish grammar, so printed the "h" in every word where there was "ch", the "ż" where there should be "rz", the "u" where everyone used to write "ó", and the "ć" where we should write the "ci". The writing was extremely shocking and, of course, was rejected by the rest of the public, nevertheless shows that literary men, well-known writers and poets of the period, could see no difference whatsoever between the pronounciation of letters in the given (and other) pairs.

jendiThreads: - Posts: 9 Joined: Oct 7, 09	Oct 22, 09, 19:11 / #
"U" and "Ó" sound always identical. "RZ" ussually sounds like "Ż" but for example in word Krzak it sound like kszak. There is also a difference between sound DŻ and Drz. For example DŻem and DŻuma should be prounaunced like english J in words like James, Jude. DŻ=J But DRZ it's like d and rz for example Drzewo,Drzazga. Remember some polish people (especially villagers and not educated) say e.g Name Andrzej like AnDŻej, it is wrong ofcourse.

z_dariusThreads: 22 Posts: 5,091 Joined: Oct 18, 07	Oct 22, 09, 19:49 / #
Ziemowit: To say that ć/ci, rz/ż, u/ó are different is pure phantasmagoria. Please do not believe people who say this, just take what all grammar books say about it for granted. To write "ci" instead of "ć" is a matter of convention. so how would you tell a difference between words in these pairs if the difference between ć and ci is pure phantasmagoria? wić - wici nić - nici tyć - tyci

LeopejoThreads: 6 Posts: 154 Joined: Sep 16, 09	Oct 22, 09, 19:50 / #
z_darius: wić - wici nić - nici tyć - tyci These are all cases that I said earlier: "ci", when not followed by a vowel, is not equal to ć but to ć + i.

nanaThreads: - Posts: 48 Joined: Sep 7, 09	Oct 27, 09, 00:46 / #
Ziemowit: The pairs rz/ż, u/ó and ch/h were once pronounced differently and still are in certain dialects of Polish, but for the standard Polish the pairs are identical. I remember I was learned different prounouciation in primary school . I had very officious teacher - it wasn't so much time ago ;)

SzwedwPolsceThreads: 13 Posts: 1,915 Joined: Feb 21, 09	Oct 27, 09, 01:04 / #
Ziemowit: To say that ć/ci, rz/ż, u/ó are different is pure phantasmagoria. Please do not believe people who say this, just take what all grammar books say about it for granted. That is what I have seen also. Ziemowit: The pairs rz/ż, u/ó and ch/h were once pronounced differently and still are in certain dialects of Polish Exactly as I thought.

ZiemowitThreads: 10 Posts: 1,063 Joined: May 8, 09	Oct 27, 09, 11:01 / #
Leopejo: These are all cases that I said earlier: "ci", when not followed by a vowel, is not equal to ć but to ć + i. That's the point indeed. The "convention" of writing down the sound "ć" comprises in fact these three points: 1. ć when followed by a consonant or at the end of a word: ćpać, choćby 2. ci when followed by a vowel: ciastko, cię, uciecha 3. the particular case occurs when c is followed by the "i" and the "i" is followed by a consonant or by nothing else: nici, tyci, cicho, poczciwy, in which case we may say the sound "ć" is written as "c" (sic!) or we just write the single "i" where we should indeed write the double "i". If the convention assumed that the writing of the sound "ć" everywhere it is pronounced as such should be the "ć", the above examples would be written as follows: ćpać, choćby, ćastko, ćę, ućecha, nići, ćicho, poczćiwy, that is in the way the literary group called "futurists" proposed in the 1920s.

osiolThreads: 59 Posts: 4,714 Joined: Jul 25, 07	Nov 7, 09, 16:47 / #
kioko: sound ć does not exist in English No. Both ć and cz are allophones in English, represented by ch. An allophone is one of two or more different sounds that stand for the same sound. For example, the h in hippy is different to the h in hop, but we don't hear them as different sounds. This is probably analogous to the h and ch (regardless of which spelling is used) in Polish, where the ch in troche isn't pronounced quite the same as the ch in chceć. They are still heard as the same sound. To me and possibly many English speakers, when Polish people pronounce ch with a cz sound, it sounds like the tongue further back on the palate than it should be. It is merely a spelling convention that ci appears before a vowel rather than ć as found before consonants and in final position in a word. Spelling would be so much simpler if we weren't all using an alphabet designed for Latin to describe the sounds of English with all its many vowel sounds and Polish with its myriad consonants.

kowaiThreads: - Posts: 4 Joined: Nov 7, 09	Nov 7, 09, 22:54 / #
"Ä" mowimy cicho "CI" mowimy z glosniejszm "I"

catsoldierThreads: 90 Posts: 694 Joined: Sep 27, 09	Edited by: catsoldier Nov 7, 09, 23:05 / #
http://www.youtube.com/user/magauchsein#p/u/77/aJI6JDAxUd4

MoonlightingThreads: 60 Posts: 308 Joined: Apr 28, 07	Nov 8, 09, 15:57 / #
"ć" and "ci" are definitely not the same. Could you imagine the Monty Python saying "We are the knights who say ń " ?

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