What Does Polish Sound Like To Non-Poles?

Polish is one of the outliers among the Slavic languages, namely because it has a quite distinct sound. Some elements of its pronunciation are quite difficult, but they're also part of what makes Polish sound so unique and - to some - beautiful.

But what does polish really sound like? Any description is, of course, strongly subjective, but this article will reflect some of the common impressions that English speakers have from listening to Polish and, perhaps, learning the language.

Polish sounds like a light, happy, and melodic version of Russian. Some words tend to have a similar melody to Italian, and many sounds resemble French or Portuguese. It's impossible, however, to precisely describe the sound of Polish without dissecting its phonology and analyzing what makes it tick, and even that wouldn't make you "feel" the language.

But with that being said, let's try and explore the sound of the Polish language a bit further:

A Slavic Language With Latin Vibes

Many describe Polish as having a certain "Latin" feel to it, and that the language somehow reminds them of French, Portuguese, Spanish or Italian.

If you know a bit about languages, you'll realize that French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, despite being related, have a very different sound from one another.

This obviously speaks to how subjective the comparisons are. One thing that most people seem to agree upon, however, is that the Romance languages cited above tend to have a very "elegant" and "sophisticated" sound to them, and this is something that many say of Polish too.

As for a more analytic comparison, Polish might share some sounds with French, such as certain nasal vowels and the Polish "że" and French "je" sounds which most languages don't have.

Polish also has a certain flow to it, where the stress is put on the second-last syllable in a sentence, something that mirrors how the French language tends to put the stress on the last syllable.

And then there's the Portuguese connection. Polish and Portuguese seem to share a lot of sounds, and they seem to have somewhat similar rhythms and melodies, despite being very different languages.

As for Spanish and Italian? In my opinion, the monotonous Spanish and the melodic Italian have very little in common in terms of melody, despite being very similar when it comes to individual sounds (and everything else really). I wouldn't compare Spanish to Polish, but the melody of Italian does remind me of a few Polish words.

Generally, I'd say that the relatively low number of vowels in the Polish language as well as the tendency for "consonant clusters" take away some of the "color" that you hear in Romance languages such as French, Italian, and even Portuguese.

Polish: Up-beat Slavonic

Ok, so Polish reminds people of various Romance languages. That's sort of strange because it couldn't be further from any of them in terms of grammar and vocabulary.

And that leads me to stating the obvious:

Polish sounds much more Slavic than anything else because, well, it is Slavic.

And among the Slavic languages, [some are relatively close to Polish](http://What language is the most similar to Polish?), such as Czech and Slovak, and sometimes even Ukrainian.

But what sets Polish aside from the other Slavic languages, according to various Slavs, is that Polish has a very "upbeat", "light", and "happy" sound to it.

Some describe Polish as a much "softer" and more friendly form of Russian with more melody and variety with its nasal vowels and its strange consonant clusters.

But these are, again, extremely subjective statements!

In the below video, you'll see a comparison of some Polish and Russian vocabulary:

While the video doesn't compare any sentences, which would illustrate the melody and the flow of the languages better, it does gives us an idea of how individual words compare.

When listening to the above video, I personally tend to agree with the common conception of Polish being "lighter". A few words remind me of Italian or French pronunciation, and the words seem to be very melodic.

This doesn't mean, however, that the Russian speaker sounds "unfriendly" or more "serious". In fact, I think that the sound of the two languages is rather close.

Conclusion: What Does Polish Sound Like?

It's not easy to describe what a language sounds like in words. In reality, the Polish language sounds like Polish, and all other comparisons would bring us a little further away from understanding what the language is actually like.

The best example would be to look up a few different Polish speakers and judge for yourself.

That being said, Polish is often described as "elegant", "light", "happy", and "melodic" to a much higher degree than other Slavic languages.

It's sometimes compared to languages of the "Romance" language group, such as French, Italian and Portuguese. These languages are, however, very different from Polish, and the comparison only serves to give you an idea of the "feel" of the language.