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
A	Ą	B	C	Ć	D	E	Ę	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	Ł
M	N	Ń	O	Ó	P	R	S	Ś	T	U	W	Y	Z	Ź	Ż
Lowercase letters
a	ą	b	c	ć	d	e	ę	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	ł
m	n	ń	o	ó	p	r	s	ś	t	u	w	y	z	ź	ż

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
Letter		Sound (IPA)	English approximation
A	a	[ä]	As a in large
Ą	ą	[ɔw̃]	As o in no
B	b	[b]	As b in box
C	c	[t͡s]	As ts in rots
Ć	ć	[t͡ɕ]	As ch in chew
D	d	[d]	As d in dog
E	e	[ɛ]	As e in bed
Ę	ę	[ɛw̃]	As ow in how, but the tongue is more forward
F	f	[f]	As f in find
G	g	[g]	As g in goat
H	h	[x]	As h in hot, but the tongue is more forward
I	i	[i]	As ee in meet
J	j	[j]	As y in you
K	k	[k]	As c in cot
L	l	[l]	As l in load
Ł	ł	[w]	As w in wet
M	m	[m]	As m in mop
N	n	[n]	As n in not
Ń	ń	[ɲ]	As ny in canyon
O	o	[ɔ]	As o in stop
Ó	ó	[u]	As u in rule
P	p	[p]	As p in pink
R	r	[ɾ]	As r in road
S	s	[s]	As s in sack
Ś	ś	[ɕ]	As sh in ship
T	t	[t]	As t in tip
U	u	[u]	As u in rule
W	w	[v]	As v in drive
Y	y	[ɨ]	As i in rid
Z	z	[z]	As z in zip
Ź	ź	[ʑ]	As si in vision
Ż	ż	[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
Digraph	Sound (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