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weź/wej - Pronunciation questions

posts: 4

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Feb 1, 10, 12:14 #1

My Polish girlfriend is kind of crazy about vegetables and often tells me something like "weź sobie surówkę/sałatkę", I could swear it sounds like "wej sobie" rather than "weź sobie". Am I hearing wrong, or people actually say like that? What other situations exist where sounds change or blend when two twords are said quickly next to each other?

Some other examples: Coś zrobić, coś zjeść...

ZiemowitThreads: 10 Posts: 1,063 Joined: May 8, 09 ♂	Edited by: Ziemowit Feb 1, 10, 12:54 #2
I think you are right. I've never realised myself that Polish people speak like that, but it is true. The two words in "weź_sobie" flow into one word in which the ź tends almost to disappear, so it is a very weak sound which may remind a weakly pronounced j indeed. The same with "coś_zrobić" in which the ś is strongly reduced (into a very weak s perhaps).

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Feb 1, 10, 13:05 #3

Good point! SH and Z, in English, would tend to have a vowel between them. Think of Snoop Doggy Dogg when he says SHIZZA ;) ;) Between ś and z comes sth like a snake's ssss (hiss). Look at any language and they likely have sth similar.

Look at the Polish words for 50 and 90. They don't say pięćdzisiąt, more like pinjishont. 90 goes along similar lines.

Also, ź often goes at the end so you can make a more fuller sound for it. Ź followed by s isn't the most natural of progressions in the world.

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Mar 15, 11, 14:03 #4

Derevon:

"wej sobie" rather than "weź sobie". Am I hearing wrong, or people actually say like that?

What people actually say is: "weś-sobie", and it's the neighbourhood of soft s and hard s, which results in this weird "wej-sobie" sound. Similairly in phrases "coś zrobić", "coś zjeść", you hear "coź-zrobić", "coź-zjeść", the voiceless ś becomes voiced and the źz sound gets simplified during normal speech.

You can ask your girlfriend to say "nasz ogród" - people from Northern Poland pronounce it "nasz-ogrót", if she's from the South it will sound "naż-ogrót" :)

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