Breakdown of Co słychać?
Questions & Answers about Co słychać?
A natural approximation is tso SWIH-hahch.
A bit more precisely:
- co sounds like tso
- sły- has a short y sound that does not exist exactly in English; it is similar to the vowel in roses for some speakers, but tenser
- -chać has the Polish ch, like a hard h, and ć, a soft ch-like sound
The stress is on the first syllable of słychać: SŁY-chać.
Słychać is an impersonal verb form related to słyszeć (to hear). By itself, it means something like can be heard or is heard.
So literally, Co słychać? is roughly What is heard? But in real usage, that literal sense is not what matters. It functions as a fixed expression meaning What’s up?, How are things?, or What’s going on?
Because this expression is built differently from English.
- co = what
- jak = how
In English, we often ask How are things? or What’s up? Polish happens to use co in this idiom: Co słychać?
So even though the natural English translation may use how, the Polish phrase itself uses what. This is just something to learn as a set expression.