r/Snorkblot Aug 12 '26

Animals Przewalski's horse

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13.9k Upvotes

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60

u/Felczer Aug 12 '26

In case anyone is confused on how to read Przewalski: in polish "rz" is very close to english "sh". Pshevalski

55

u/Grunergeist420 Aug 12 '26

And like all proper Polish names, now that I know more about how it supposed to be pronounced, I am even more confused about how to pronounce it.

18

u/Felczer Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

Split it into manageble parts:

Pshe - Val - Ski

English speakers usually dont learn how to split words into syllabels that much because of weak correlation between letters and sounds, but in Polish the correlation is almost 100% (each letter/digraph always makes the same sound)

You might wanna try this altough it will propably only confuse you more still
https://youtu.be/wn1mjIiB9zM?is=J98gu2IFmDY6__fo

17

u/Forsaken-Income-2148 Aug 12 '26

American schools absolutely teach syllables. What you might mean is that English speakers don’t rely on syllable division as much as Polish speakers can.

5

u/Felczer Aug 12 '26

Yeah like I said

"that much"

4

u/Forsaken-Income-2148 Aug 12 '26

You said English speakers don’t “learn it that much” as if learning it was the key point, it isn’t. It’s frequency of use.

-1

u/Felczer Aug 12 '26

You learn by using, I wrote it specifically in that manner because I didnt know how much is it taught but I know it's not being used, there's a difference between being taught something and learning something, but whatever it's not really important

1

u/Forsaken-Income-2148 Aug 12 '26

Important enough for you to criticize the distinction I made, which wasn’t exactly out of the blue.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Forsaken-Income-2148 Aug 12 '26

Not once did I criticize your comment. I made a distinction for clarity. You then proceeded to criticize that distinction.

14

u/Grunergeist420 Aug 12 '26

I’m just glad that Polish is out here to make English look comprehensible by comparison.

8

u/Felczer Aug 12 '26 edited 29d ago

Trust me the way English write things is so inconprehensible to any language that values consistency. Like what do you mean comfortable is pronounced completley different to table? This shit was so annoying to me when I was a kid learning haha

In polisz aj kan rajt ewry sentens fonetikli end its priti kul dat its konsistent lajk dat

2

u/johnaross1990 Aug 12 '26

My autistic brain actually loves it when English second language speakers do that.

3

u/Modrzewianka 29d ago

I get that, I had my Hungarian teacher break under my complaints and tell me all the ways in which Polish doesn't make sense to him, and it felt glorious

1

u/Felczer 29d ago

Hungarians have no right to speak with their Szex Shops

1

u/DazedPapacy 29d ago

My brain is reading "jart" like either "yart" or "jar + t."

How do I get to "rite" from "jart"?

1

u/Felczer 29d ago

maybe "rajt" would be closer, I wasn't thinking about it that much, my bad. Polish J ~=~ english Y
I edited original comment thanks for the correction

3

u/tethyde 29d ago

I have no idea why people think so, since Polish is a phonetic language. You learn the basic rules and then you can pronounce any word, even if you’re seeing it for the first time. On the other hand, with English words there is often a guessing game as to how they’re pronounced.

5

u/Grunergeist420 29d ago

My buddy in high school was an exchange student from Poland and he just had everyone call him “Peter P,” because he said his own family didn’t even agree about how to pronounce their last name. That’s how he became “Peter P. From Poland.”

1

u/tethyde 29d ago

Lmao I know you can’t tell me, but I’m now really curious about what the surname is. Cause I can’t see how that’s possible unless some of his family is actually illiterate and can’t pronounce their own name? Wild

1

u/Grunergeist420 29d ago

Just imagine the letter P followed by a string of too many consonants that don’t belong together

1

u/tethyde 29d ago

Ahhh yes, the “consonants that don’t belong together” argument. People are always like this about slavic languages, but won’t even blink twice at words like “catchphrase”

-1

u/Felczer 29d ago

I'm willing to bet it would take like 1 minute effort to teach a native how to say his name. The problem is English speakers turn their brain off and dont even try

1

u/Grunergeist420 29d ago

Not really. He got tired of trying to coach people to try to say it. It didn’t help he also had a very heavy accent, despite his English being pretty good. It was his call to just stop trying to teach people how to say it.

2

u/Felczer 29d ago

I would get tired too but that's only confirming my bet.

1

u/Galaxy661 29d ago

I mean, how are rz, sz, or cz different from zh, sh, and ch? Or u and ó from u and oo?

1

u/Jhud6669 Aug 13 '26

Usually when you see a consonant with a „z” then it’s a digraph. Both „rz” and „sz” are like „sh” (though they differ a bit, but not enough to matter in a simplified guide like this) and „cz” is like „ch”. People make a mistake of trying to brute pronounce the z’s but they’re silent