Thread: Does Polish really have fixed stress???????

Sorry for the excessive number of question marks. As you can tell, I'm more excited than a 13-year-old who just got his first internet access.

Anyway, today I bought my first Polish textbook. As I was reading the introduction, I came upon something that overwhelmed me with joy. I was so happy that I was about to cry. It said, right there, that Polish, for the most part, has FIXED STRESS! For me, this is such a relief, having endured the unpredictability of the Russian stress pattern, only to find out that there is a language that is just as grammatically challenging as Russian, if not more so, yet with no weird stress patterns. Anyway, what I'm trying to ask actually is, as far as Polish goes, how frequent does the "unfixed" stress occur in Polish? I know uniwErsitet is one of them, and I would surmise that it is mostly foreign words that do not follow the Polish stress pattern.

Second, as I understand, the stress falls on the penultimate syllable normally, yes? So, in Polish they would say Pokoj (sorry, the kreska isn't working here for some reason) as opposed to Pokoj, right? That's how I understood it (sorry, today was my first encounter with Polish, so forgive the newbish questions).

While I wrote this post partly because I was wondering about the stress, it was mainly the fact that I just want to stand here and sing in joy to the world that I have finally found a Slavic language with fixed stress!

*Jumps around in excitement*

P.S. If you were ever to hear my spoken Russian, I think you'll laugh at how often I misplace the stress. Just today, I found out that it was удалось and not удалось, so, you see how even after I studied Russian for quite some time, stress in Russian truly жить мешает, especially when it's a Russian language learner.

Originally Posted by Yazeed

So, in Polish they would say Pokoj (sorry, the kreska isn't working here for some reason) as opposed to Pokoj, right?

Yes it would.
Pok

good news for you, Polish most definitely has a fixed stress
in 97% words the next to last sylablle is stressed, e.g. "szkLAnka", "TAlerz" and so on, and so forth.

how frequent does the "unfixed" stress occur in Polish?

not too often. It's usually in foreign, long words, but quite frankly speaking, an awful lot of people doon't pay much attention to it, and keep on stressing the next to last syllable. I have to admit, that frequently I would also say "biblioTEka" rather than "bibliOteka", however I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce "uniwerSYtet", everyone says "uniWERsytet" simply beacuse it's easier
Apparently, also past tense of verbs in, erm... the mood which expresses suppositions (sorry, can't remember the term) is also supposed to be stressed the way to foreign words ("roBIlibyśmy", not "robiliBYśmy"), but yet again, ordinary people don't really follow this rule. Actually, even plenty of people on the television wouldn't usually remember about the stress
So, to sum up, stress is the very last thing you should worry about when it comes to the Polish language

Originally Posted by kamka

I would also say "biblioTEka" rather than "bibliOteka",

Ха! Значит вот откуда идет шуточное библиотека в русском! Это пародирование польского

Originally Posted by kamka

everyone says "uniWERsytet" simply beacuse it's easier

Мне проще университет

Originally Posted by Wowik

Мне проще университет

guess they're right when they say "przyzwyczajenie drugą naturą człowieka"!

btw, come to think of it, I would say "uniWERsytet", but "na uniwersyTEcie". Also simply 'cause it's easier.
The thing is, Poles don't really think about the stress when they speak, they'd pronounce things the easier way - which is usually the next to last syllable, since that's exactly what we got used to within the years. :P

Awesome! Polish is świetny! Oh my god, you guys have no idea how happy I am!

I can't wait to immerse myself in it!

Thanks!

and if you get tired of Polish, try Czech - also fixed stress. Prob. Slovak too.

самым необычным для моего уха было то, что написанные по-польски слова типа wieszniego, polskiego именнто так и произносятся - "вешнего", "польскего", а не "вешнево" и "польскево", что в принципе звучит дико для русского. Очень долго привыкал.