Polish Recipes LOCKED

Actually, I didn't want my kitchen to smell like cabbage, so I asked the lady here at work who's organizing the shower if she would be heartbroken if I just made my normal type of food. She said the attorney goes to her parents' house just about every week and gets tons of polish food, so she probably wouldn't feel deprived. That was a huge relief, because the shower is this Monday, and Donovan and I are celebrating our anniversary that weekend, so the last thing I think I would've wanted is to spend the days in the kitchen glued to a cookbook. But thank you so much!

If you can't find it the closest would be cottage chease...

Soured/curdled milk turned into a very loose cottage cheese-like substance

LOL this might be more confusing but....

1) there is no difference of length of the vowels, all are of the middle length, independently of wheter they appear in the begginning or the middle or the end of a syllable, independently of what follows or does not follow, independently of whether the syllable is stressed or not.

2) All simple vowels ("a", "e", "o", "u") are prononced as in Italian or Spanish (as in the American English in: _ah!_ or _father_, _bed_ or _egg_; _more_ or British _caught_; _put_ or _boot_ respectively). "ó" (o-acute) is pronounced the same way as the simple Polish "u"

3) There are two nasal vowels in Polish, normally written with ogonek (litt. a little tail, i.e. a hook or inversed cedille) below. Both assimilate to the following consonant.
These are:
a) "e," - pronounced as French [in] but assimilating to [simple Polish] "en" before "t", "d", "n"; to "em" before "p", "b", "m", "f"; to "e"+[ng] (see 19) before "k", "g"; to [e]+[ny] (see 19) before "c'"/"ci", "dz'"/"dzi"; and to a simple "e" if in the end of a word.
b) "a," - pronounced as French [on] but assimilating to "on", "om", "o"+[ng], "o"+[ny] in the situations described above. It, however, never becomes simple "o" in the end.

4) "i" is pronounced as Eglish short [ee] or short [e] (in "meet" or _English_), but in practice if you pronounce it as English [i] (in _is_), everybody would accept it as a reasonable approximation, although not quite correct (see below 5). The rule above woorks always, except for a situation when "i" is followed by another vowel - in the latter case it is:
a) in most cases pronounced as English semi-vowel [y] (e.g. "bia.." as English _byah_ or French _Biarritz_)
b) when it appears after "c", "s", "z", "dz", "n" - it changes the pronounciation of the consonant and the "i" itself is not pronounced at all (see below under consonants, 11-14, 19)

5) "y" is a vowel in Polish, always pronounced as English [i] in _is_.

6) "j" is a semivowel in Polish, pronounced as English [y] (compare to the German usage), eg. "jard" - pronounce [yart]

6a) "g" is always pronounced as [g] in _go_ or _gift_, never as in _gym_.

7) consonants "p", "t", "k", "f", "s", "sz", "s'", "c", "cz", "c'" are voilceless, never become voiced (especially Polish "s" is not liable to this change common in English). Polish "p", "t", "k" are never aspirated as they are in English.

8) consonant "w" is pronounced as English [v] (compare to the German usage), (but see below, 9), eg. "wódka" pronounce [vootka]. Polish does not use letter "v" at all. (It doesn't also use eltters "x" and "q" - except all three for the loan-words, like "taxi", "fax" (the more and more often written "faks"), and foreign names "Quebec", "von Hartmann")

9) consonants "b", "d", "g", "w", "z", "z'", "z*", "rz", "dz", "dz'", "dz*" are voiced, but when appearing as the last sound in the word or before an unvoiced consonant - they become voiceless (e.g. "bóg" - pronounce as [book], "odpowiada" - pronounce [otpowyada])
also in the clusters "trz", "prz", "krz" - the "rz" part is voiceless (pronounced as [sh]) - see below 17

10) "r" is a rolled consonant in Polish (compare to Scottish), but see below, 17)

11) "c" is never pronounced as "k", it is pronounced diffrently, depending what other letter follows.
a) if it is followed by an "h" - the "ch" is pronounced [kh] as Scottish [ch] in _Loch_ (compare German usage).
b) if it is followed by a "z" - the "cz" is prononounced as HARD [tch], similar to English [ch] in _church_
c) if it is followed by an "i" and then another vowell, the "ci" is pronounced as SOFT [tch], also similar to the English [ch] in _church_ (see 15 for the difference between the HARD and SOFT consonants), and the "i" is not pronounced at all
d) if it is followed by an "i" after which no other vowel follows, the "c" is pronounced as the SOFT [tch], and the "i" is pronounced as the vowel "i"
e) if it is bearing an acute accent above (I mark it as "c'") it is pronounced as SOFT [tch]
f) in all other cases ("c" followed by another vowel than "i", or another consonant than "h" or "z", or in the end of the word) "c" is pronounced as "ts"

12. the voiced counterpart to "c" is written "dz", except that is has no situation of being followed by an "h"
b) if the "z" in "dz" has a dot above (dotaccent) (I mark it as "dz*") - the "dz*" is pronounced as HARD English [dj] in _judge_
c) "dzi"+vowel = SOFT [dj]+vowel other than "i"
d) "dzi" and no other vowel = SOFT [dj] + "i"
e) "dz'" ("z" bearing an acute accent) = SOFT [dj]
f) in all other cases "dz" = [dz]

13. a similar situation happens to "s", it also is never followed by an "h"
b) "sz" = HARD English [sh] in _shoe_
c) "si"+vowel = SOFT [sh] (as in _Sue_ in some pronounciations) + vowel other than "i"
d) "si" + no other vowel = SOFT [sh]
e) "s'" ("s" bearing an acute accent) = SOFT [sh]
f) in all other cases "s" = [ss] in _hiss_

12. a similar situation happens to the voiced counterpart of "s" ie. to "z", it also is never followed by an "h"
b) if the "z" has a dot above (dotaccent) (I mark it as "z*") - the "z*" is pronounced as HARD English [zh] in _Brezhnev_
c) "zi"+vowel = SOFT [zh]+vowel other than "i"
d) "zi" and no other vowel = SOFT [zh] + "i"
e) "z'" ("z" bearing an acute accent) = SOFT [zh]
f) in all other cases "z" = [z]

15) HARD and SOFT consonants

so, as you have seen, Polish has two layers of postalveolar consonats, which we call SOFT (palatal) and HARD (apical). The SOFT ones have double spelling depending on whether it is not followed by any vowel (a letter with an acute accent)
or fillowed by a vowel (a letter followed by an "i"; but if the volwel is "i" itself, it is nout duplicated):

SOFT s'/si z'/zi c'/ci dz'/dzi

English sh zh ch/dj j/dj

HARD sz z* cz dz*

I have especially written the English consonants in between the two ows of the Polish ones, to show you that the English are pronounced as if in the middle (between) the Polish ones.
If you have a comparison with Chinese, Polish distinction is close to it:

SOFT x --- q j
HARD sh r ch zh
except that the Polish equivalent of the Chinese [ch] = "cz" is never aspirated, as the Chinese one is, and that the Polish equivalents of Chinese [j] = "dz'"/"dzi" and [zh] = "dz*" are always voiced (except see p. 9), whereas the Chinese once are always AMBIVALENT.

You can imitate this distinction also by adding a [y] after the English consonant in order to obtain the SOFT one. I will use the following notation in the final part of this mail:
HARD [sh] [zh] [tch] [dj]
SOFT [shy] [zhy] [tchy] [djy]

16) standalone "h" is pronounced exactly the same way as the Polish "ch" - Scottish [ch], close to English [kh] (see 11 a) above), never as th English [h]

17) "rz" is pronounced the same way as "z*", i.e. as HARD [zh]. In the clusters "trz", "prz", "krz" - the "rz" part is always voiceless (pronounced as [sh]) - i.e. [tsh], [psh] and [ksh]

18) The word-stress for 98 per cent of Polish words should be put on the penultima syllable, e.g. on [de] in _Tadeusz_
and on "ciusz" in _Kosciuszko_.

19) "n" SOFT (which I note as [ny], compare Franch [gn] in _mignon_ or Spanish [n~] (n-tilde) in _Espan~a_) is also a subject to a double spelling depending on whether it is or is not followed by a vowel. In the former case (without a vowel) it is written with an acute "n'", in the latter it is written with an "i" following ("ni"), which again is no or is pronounced depending on whether there is or is not anothe r vowel following.
On the contrary, Polish has no standalone sound of [ng] - this sound appears only when a "n" stands before a "k" or "g". So it has no special spelling

20) "l-" or barred L - is pronounced nowadays always as English [w] - "l-ódka" = [wootka]

Now all the Polish letters in my transcription and in the ISO-8859-2 encoding Central European Character set

My a a, b c c' d e e, f g h i j k l l- m n
ISO a ¹ b c æ d e ê f g h i j k l ³ m n

My n' o o' p r s s' t u w y z z' z*
ISO ñ o ó p r s ¶ t u w y z Ÿ ¿

digraphs:
My ch cz dz dz' dz* rz sz
ISO ch cz dz dŸ d¿ rz sz

Set your browser to the ISO-8859-2 (View-Character-Set in Netscape) and you'll see all of them correctly.

21) going back to your words:

in the approximations (appr.) I give a version that an average American will read 'quite' correct.

"Dudzick" - must be an English spelling, Polish does not have "ck", in Polish "Dudzik" pronounce [doo-djyeeck] or appr. [doo-jick]

"Kaminski" - a typical Polish name, "n" should bear an acute (same for all the names below), so "Kamin'ski" pronounce [ka-meeny-skee] or [kah-min-ski]

"Sowinski" - ditto, pronounce [so-veeny-skee] or appr. [saw-vin-ski]

"Zalinski" - not a Polish name, probably an invention by the writer, pronounce [za-leeny-skee] or appr. [zah-lin-ski]

"Pazinski" - ditto, pronounce [pa-zhyeen-skee] or appr. [pah-zhin-ski]

"Czestochowa" should have an ogonek below the "e" = so "Cze,stochowa" pronounce [tchen-sto-kho-va]

"Casimir" is an English equivalent of the Polish name "Kazimierz" - so if you have "Casimir", pronounce it as the Americans do (ask at the local Roman Catholic parish), and if you want the Polish word, pronounce it [ka-zhyee-myesh] or appr. [kah-zhee-myesh].

22) Sorry, that my presentation is a bit chaotic. The next person asking me about a pronoiunciation will obtain it better arranged. I have written all the rules, as I though they might be useful for your future reference.

23) I have never bookmarked any audio web-pages with Polish
pronounciation, although I have met some in the past years. A quick check with Google seems to give a few of them, but I am not certain if they appear useful, so try yourself:

http://grzegorj.w.interia.pl/gram/unien/fonemy.html

http://www.cs.sfu.ca/people/GradStudents/koperski/personal/audio/polish.html

try also:
http://www.asg.amp.edu.pl/incoming/phrases.htm
http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/guides/polish.html
http://dmoz.org/Reference/Dictionaries/World_Languages/P/Polish/
http://www.magma.ca/~elka/wojtek_majewski/wm_short.html
http://www.kmm-language.com/Resources.html

Not too busy...I'm waiting for her to call me back right now. Were you thinking mean foods, or finger foods and appetizers?

Yeh, I love pierogies. Only've had 'em a couple times in me life tho. But, last time was as recent as this year & they were a delight.

yeah it's just chopped tomatoes, i don't know what gazpacho is...

lots of onion, salt and pepper

and then the sour cream medley that's left on your plate when all the veggies are gone, is best sopped up with a piece of polish rye bread

haha :)