The Polish Alphabet

Polish is written with a 32-letter version of the Latin alphabet — the same script you already read in English — but extended with nine letters that carry small marks. The good news for an English speaker is profound: once you learn what each letter (and each two-letter digraph) stands for, you can read almost any Polish word aloud correctly on first sight. Polish spelling is phonemic: it maps onto sounds with a regularity that English, with its "though / through / tough," can only dream of.

The 32 letters in order

Here is the full alphabet as a Polish child learns it:

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

Notice three things straight away. First, there is no q, v, or x in this list — those appear only in foreign words, brand names, and abbreviations, never in native Polish (more on that below). Second, several familiar letters have acquired marks: ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ź ż. Third, ł sits as its own letter right after l, and the dotted ż closes the alphabet after z and ź.

The nine diacritic letters

These are the letters that make Polish look distinctive on the page:

These marks are not optional decoration. Each one creates a genuinely different letter with a different sound (and often a different meaning). We treat that in detail on the typing page, but here is the principle: an ó is not a fancy o, an ś is not an s with a flourish. They are separate letters, and leaving the mark off is a spelling mistake, exactly as writing "cat" for "cot" would be.

The three diacritic marks

There are only three marks to learn, and learning their names helps:

• The ogonek ("little tail") hangs under ą and ę. It signals nasalization — air escaping through the nose during the vowel.
• The kreska ("stroke / acute") sits over ć ń ó ś ź. Over a consonant it signals softness (palatalization); over ó it is a historical mark that today simply spells the "oo" sound.
• The kropka ("dot") sits over a single letter, ż, marking the "zh" sound.

A showcase of the marks

Three words display almost the entire diacritic range and are worth saying aloud:

Look at źdźbło: four consonant letters in a row, two of them diacritic, and dź is a single sound. Look at żółć: it packs ż, ó, and ć into one short word. These look intimidating, but every mark is doing real phonetic work — none is there to be dropped.

y is a real vowel

One letter trips up English speakers immediately: y. In English, y is a marginal letter that sometimes plays consonant (yes), sometimes vowel (happy). In Polish, y is a full, common vowel — a back/central sound written [ɨ] in phonetic notation, made with the tongue pulled back from where you'd say "ee." It appears constantly, including in grammatical endings.

Treat y as a vowel from day one. It is never silent and never a consonant in Polish.

q, v, x: guests only

Polish native vocabulary has no q, v, or x. You will still see them, because Poland imports words like any modern language:

Here even taksówka (taxi) has been respelled with native letters — Polish strongly prefers to nativise loanwords. You'll meet v in weekend-style imports and brand names, x in fax or taxi spellings, and q almost only in quiz and proper nouns. The loanwords page covers when Polish keeps the foreign letter and when it swaps in ks, w, or kw.

Why this matters: spelling predicts sound

Here is the payoff and the single biggest contrast with English. In English, you cannot reliably pronounce a new word from its spelling. In Polish, you almost always can — the letters tell you the sounds. The remaining difficulty is not unpredictability but a handful of same-sound spellings that exist for historical reasons:

• ó and u sound identical (both "oo").
• rz and ż sound identical (both "zh").
• ch and h sound identical (both a throaty "h").

In each pair, reading is no problem — both spellings give the same sound. The challenge is the reverse direction, writing: when you hear "oo," is it ó or u? Those choices follow etymological rules covered on their own pages.

The digraphs, in one breath

Beyond the 32 single letters, Polish uses seven two-letter combinations — ch, cz, dz, dź, dż, rz, sz — each standing for one sound. They are not in the alphabet recitation (they are built from letters that are), but you must learn them to read. They get a full page of their own; for now, just know that sz is "sh," cz is "ch," and cz + a few friends are coming.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Polish uses 32 letters: the Latin alphabet plus nine diacritic letters ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ź ż.
• There are three marks: the ogonek (nasal vowels), the kreska (softness, and the "oo" of ó), and the kropka (ż).
• q, v, x are foreign-only; y is a full, frequent vowel.
• Diacritics are letters, not decoration — omitting one is a spelling error and can change the word.
• Reading aloud is easy because spelling is regular; correct spelling is the real challenge, thanks to the ó/u, rz/ż, and ch/h same-sound pairs.