Polish alphabet

The Polish alphabet is the alphabet used to write the Polish language. It is based on the Latin alphabet.

The Polish alphabet has 32 letters. Twenty-three of them are from the ISO basic Latin alphabet, and the other 9 are letters with diacritics (Ą, Ć, Ę, Ł, Ń, Ó, Ś, Ź, Ż). To compare, the English alphabet does not have letters with diacritics.

Capital letters
AĄBCĆDEĘFGHIJKLŁ
MNŃOÓPRSŚTUWYZŹŻ
Lowercase letters
aąbcćdeęfghijklł
mnńoóprsśtuwyzźż

Letters

The Polish alphabet has 9 vowels and 23 consonants. It does not have Q, V, and X. Those letters are only found in loanwords (words borrowed from other languages).

The table below lists every letter in the Polish alphabet and the sound they make.

Letters of the Polish alphabet
LetterSound (IPA)English
approximation
Aa[ä]As a in large
Ąą[ɔw̃]As o in no
Bb[b]As b in box
Cc[t͡s]As ts in rots
Ćć[t͡ɕ]As ch in chew
Dd[d]As d in dog
Ee[ɛ]As e in bed
Ęę[ɛw̃]As ow in how, but the
tongue is more forward
Ff[f]As f in find
Gg[g]As g in goat
Hh[x]As h in hot, but the
tongue is more forward
Ii[i]As ee in meet
Jj[j]As y in you
Kk[k]As c in cot
Ll[l]As l in load
Łł[w]As w in wet
Mm[m]As m in mop
Nn[n]As n in not
Ńń[ɲ]As ny in canyon
Oo[ɔ]As o in stop
Óó[u]As u in rule
Pp[p]As p in pink
Rr[ɾ]As r in road
Ss[s]As s in sack
Śś[ɕ]As sh in ship
Tt[t]As t in tip
Uu[u]As u in rule
Ww[v]As v in drive
Yy[ɨ]As i in rid
Zz[z]As z in zip
Źź[ʑ]As si in vision
Żż[ʐ]As si in vision, but it
sounds deeper

Digraphs

Digraphs are combinations of two letters that make one sound. Polish has a lot of digraphs, and they all represent different sounds. The table below lists all the Polish digraphs and what sound they make.

Polish digraphs
DigraphSound (IPA)English
approximation
ch[x]As h in hot, but the
tongue is more forward
cz[t͡ʂ]As ch in chair, but it
sounds deeper
dz[d͡z]As ds in kids
dź[d͡ʑ]As j in jump
dż[d͡ʐ]As j in jump, but it
sounds deeper
rz[ʐ]As si in vision, but it
sounds deeper
sz[ʂ]As sh in ship, but it
sounds deeper