| Czech | Hungarian | Polish | Serbo-Croatian |
Pronunciation of East European Languages
The four languages covered here -- Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Serbo-Croatian -- are reasonably phonetic: within a given language, the same letters or letter combinations are generally pronounced the same way. Once you get used to how certain letters or clusters are said in a language, you can come up with a good approximation of how the word or name is said -- except when your text fails to give the essential accent (or diacritical) marks, which unfortunately happens all the time.
Basic vowels sound much the same in all four languages, for the most part; the chart for each language shows any exceptions. In Czech and Hungarian vowels are "long" if they bear an acute accent (e.g., á), in Polish and Serbo-Croatian if they occur in the stressed syllable; otherwise they are "short". All are pure, not diphthongized as in English. Where an umlaut (e.g., ö) or an accent (e.g., ă or ę or ů) changes the sound of a vowel, this is indicated under the individual language below.
| a | When long, like a in "father". For short a, see each language below. | |
| e | When short like e in "bet", when long like a in "bate". (Never like ee in "beet"!) | |
| i | When short like i in "bit", when long like ee in "beet". (Never like i in "bite"!) | |
| o | When short like o in "sort", when long like o in "sore". | |
| u | When short like u in "put", when long like u in "rule". | |
| y | Like i above. (In Magyar y mostly occurs as part of consonant combinations). |
In the treatment of each language below, the pronunciation is given only for letters and letter combinations whose sound is strange or unexpected. While the charts give English equivalents, the sounds of East European languages are actually more like those of other European languages than they are like English sounds. Many sounds in the Slavic languages (Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian) resemble sounds in Italian, while Hungarian has near equivalents in German.
| Czech | Hungarian | Polish | Serbo-Croatian |
Czech
Czech pronunciation is reasonably phonetic, and it is made easier by the fact that stress is nearly always on the first syllable. Acute accent marks on vowels (e.g., á) indicate length, which is independent of stress.
| a | When short, like u in "cut". F Havel. | |
| ě | Like ye in "yet". F Zdeněk, Němec. | |
| ů | Equivalent to the Czech ú; that is, like u in "rule". F Martinů, Jenůfa. |
| b | Like English b; but at the end of a word sounds like p. | |
| c | Like ts in "cats". F Václav. | |
| č | Like ch in "chin". F Dubček, Kosiče, Čapek. | |
| ch | A guttural sound formed at the back of the mouth, as in Scottish "loch" or German "Bach". F Hácha. | |
| d | Normally like English d; but before i or í sounds like Czech ď, and at the end of a word sounds like t. | |
| ď | A soft dy sound as in "adieu" or "verdure". At the end of a word sounds like Czech ť. | |
| g | Always hard like g in "go" (never soft like g in "gin"). | |
| h | A strong aspirate sound, never silent. F Havel, Hašek. | |
| j | Like y in "yet" or "boy". F Jan. | |
| l | Normally like English l. Between consonants, or after a consonant at the end of a word, it has a vowel-like quality. F Vltava, Plzeň (Pilsen), Lendl. | |
| n | Like English n; but before i or í sounds like Czech ň. | |
| ň | A soft ny sound as in "canyon" or "tenure". F Plzeň (Pilsen). | |
| r | Normally rolled as in Russian, Italian or Spanish. Between consonants, or after a consonant at the end of a word, it has a vowel-like quality. F Brno. | |
| ř | A difficult sound very roughly equivalent to Czech rž. F Dvořák, Jiří, Kramář. | |
| s | Always like s in "sun" (never like z in "zoo"). | |
| š | Like sh in "ship". F Beneš, Miloš, František, Šmeral. | |
| t | Like English t; but before i or í sounds like Czech ť. | |
| ť | A soft ty sound as in "Katya" or "feature". F Šťastný. | |
| v | Like English v; but at the end of a word sounds like f. | |
| z | Like English z; but at the end of a word sounds like s. | |
| ž | Like the zh sound in "azure" or "rouge". F Žižka. At the end of a word it sounds like Czech š. |
Hungarian
Hungarian (also known as Magyar) is a Finno-Ugric language with no European relatives except Estonian and Finnish. Stress is always on the first syllable; acute accent marks on vowels (e.g., á) indicate length, which is independent of stress. Doubled consonants are held longer than single consonants.
| a | (short) Like o in "loss", but quick. F Magyar, Nagy. | |
| ö | (short) Like short German ö or oe in "Goebbels". F Gömbös, Vörösmarty, Görgey. | |
| ő | (long) Like long German ö or oe in "Goethe". F Gyõr, Petõfi, Jenõ. | |
| ü | (short) Like short German ü or ue in "Düsseldorf". F Hegedüs. | |
| ű | (long) Like long German ü or ue in "Führer". F Szekfű. |
| c | Like ts in "cats". F Debrecen. | |
| cs | Like ch in "chin". F Pécs, Lukács, Jancsó. | |
| g | Always hard like g in "go" (never soft like g in "gin"). F Eger. | |
| gy | A soft dy sound as in "adieu" or "verdure". NB: This is a d sound, not a g sound! F Magyar, Nagy, György. | |
| h | Always sounded (aspirate), never silent. | |
| j | Like y in "yet" or "boy". F Lajos. | |
| ly | Like y in "yet"; exactly the same as Hungarian j. F Kodály, Károlyi, Illyés. | |
| ny | A soft ny sound as in "canyon" or "tenure". F Tihany, Nyers, Arany. | |
| r | Rolled as in Russian, Italian or Spanish. Not at all like the American r, nor like the German or French r. | |
| s | Like sh in "ship". F Kossuth, Pest, Rákosi. | |
| sz | Like s in "sun". F Szeged, Tisza, Liszt. | |
| ty | A soft ty sound as in "Katya" or "feature". F Mátyás. | |
| zs | Like the zh sound in "azure" or "rouge". F József, Zsigmond, Zsa-Zsa. |
Polish
Polish looks particularly strange, with its consonant clusters and accent marks as well as plenty of k's and w's and z's. But the language is strictly phonetic, so once you get used to how letters or clusters are said, the pronunciation is not hard. Stress nearly always falls on the next-to-last syllable.
| a | When short, like a in "cat". FKraków (Cracow). | |
| ą | Nasal, similar to the vowel sound in French "bon". F Dąbrowski, Elbląg. | |
| ę | Nasal, similar to the vowel sound in French "fin". F Wałęsa, Oświęcim (Auschwitz). | |
| i | Like ee in "beet" (except in the consonant combinations ci, dzi, si, and zi; see below.) NB: the combination ie is not one sound but two, like ye in "yet". F Gierek, Mazowiecki, Niemen. | |
| ó | Like oo in "boot". F Lwów, Łódż. |
| b | Like English b; but at the end of a word sounds like p. | |
| c | Like ts in "cats". F Wrocław. | |
| ck | Not one sound but two, pronounced tsk. F Mazowiecki, Potocki, Mickiewicz. | |
| ć,ci,cz | All much like ch in "chin". F Cieszyn, Wojciech, Mieczysław, Czartoryski. | |
| ch | A guttural sound formed at the back of the mouth, as in Scottish "loch" or German "Bach". F Lech, Chłopicki, Czestochowa. | |
| d | Like English d; but at the end of a word sounds like t. | |
| dzi,dź,dż | All much like j in "jam". F Dzierżyński, Łódż. | |
| g | Always hard like g in "go" ( never soft like g in "gin"). F Gierek. At the end of a word sounds like k. | |
| h | Always sounded (aspirate), never silent. | |
| j | Like y in "yet" or "boy". F Jaruzelski. | |
| ł | Much like w in "wet". F Gomułka, Wałęsa, Białystok, Miłosz, Piłsudski, Pułaski. | |
| ń | A soft ny sound as in "canyon" or "tenure". F Kuroń, Poznań. | |
| r | Rolled as in Russian, Italian or Spanish. Not at all like the American r, nor like the German or French r. | |
| rz | Like the zh sound in "azure" or "rouge", except that in combinations it sounds like English sh. F Brzesiński, Przemyśl. | |
| s | Always like s in "sun" (never like z in "zoo"). | |
| ś,si,sz | All much like sh in "ship". F Kościuszko, Oświęcim (Auschwitz), Warszawa (Warsaw),. | |
| szcz | Like English shch run together. In Polish this is considered one sound, as it is in Russian (e.g. "Khrushchev"). F Szczecin (Stettin), Bydgoszcz, Kiszczak. | |
| w | Like v in "vat", except at the end of a syllable or word, when it sounds like f in "fat". F Warszawa (Warsaw), Lwów, Wrocław, Kraków (Cracow). | |
| z | Like English z; but at the end of a word sounds like s. | |
| ź,ż,zi | All much like the zh sound in "azure" or "rouge". |
Serbo-Croatian
Serbs and Croats (and also Bosnian Muslims) speak the same Slavic language, Serbo-Croatian. In writing, Croats use a Roman alphabet resembling ours, but with accent marks and special letter combinations; this is what is shown below. Serbs use a Cyrillic alphabet similar to the Russian alphabet. The language, being phonetic, is not hard to pronounce (approximately) from seeing it written, except that there is no easy way to tell where the stress falls nor whether the vowels are long or short.
|
a |
When short, like u in "cut". |
| c | Like ts in "cats". F Jajce, Podgorevac, Cetinje. | |
| č | Like ch in "chin". F Pribičević, Četnik , Peč. | |
| ć | A soft ty sound as in "Katya" or "feature"; occurs nearly exclusively in the combination ić at the end of family names. F Radić, Pavelić, Ranković, Milošević. | |
| đ, dj | A soft dy sound as in "adieu" or "verdure". F Djilas (or Ðilas), Karadjordjević, Tudjman. | |
| dž | Like j in "jam". F Karadžić, Džemijet. | |
| g | Always hard like g in "go", never soft like g in "gin". | |
| h | A strong aspirate sound, never silent. F Hrvatska (Croatia). | |
| j | Like y in "yet" or "boy"; also often occurs in letter combinations. F Sarajevo, Pijade. | |
| lj | A soft ly sound as in "value"; at the end of a syllable like y in "boy". F Ljudevit, Kardelj. | |
| nj | A soft ny sound as in "canyon" or "tenure". F Njegoš, Banja Luka. | |
| r | Normally rolled as in Russian, Italian or Spanish. Between consonants it has a vowel-like quality, as in the Serbo-Croatian words for "Serbia" and "Croatia": "Srbija" and "Hrvatska". | |
| s | Always like s in "sun" (never like z in "zoo"). | |
| š | Like sh in "ship". F Niš, Pašić, Skupština, Ustaša, Višegrad. | |
| ž | Like the zh sound in "azure" or "rouge". F Živković, Draža. |