can you make a 'cheat sheet' from the following text?:

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118                                                                             Beyond Philology 16/1 equivalents  sound  foreign  to  an  English  ear  and  for  that  reason should be corrected.8Let  us  turn  our  attention  now  to  the  consonant-related  errors   most   typical   and   frequently   committed   by   Polish   learners  of  English.  From  the  pedagogical  point  of  view,  it  is  worth   noting   that   these   common   mispronunciations   are   systematic  and  because  of  that,  they  may  be  considerably  minimised if adequate attention is paid to them and practice is applied. Let us begin our review with the segments, which do not  occur  in  the  Polish  sound  system,  and  are  potentially  the  most problematic.3.   The most “notorious” usual consonant substitutions I.  Replacement  of  /ð/  with  the  Polish  /z/,  /d/,  /v/  or  /dz/  (the  Polish  voiced  dental  affricate  does  not  occur  in  English)  results in: a) Foreign accent:the, this,that,these, those,  with,though; and of /θ/ with /s/, /t/or /f/: thousand, both,theory,thank,enthusiastic,thriller, method,thesis, authority.  b) Possible confusion: three -free, tree; through - true; thank - tank - sank; think - sink; thin - fin - tin - sin;thick - tick - sick. c) Replacement of /ŋ/ with the Polish nasal dental /n/ or /ɲ/ especially in slow, careful speech resulting in:  c’)  Foreign  accent:  pink, sting, punk, ranking, ink, link, long(/ɪ/  tends  to  be  pronounced  as  /i/),  which  results  in  the  pronunciation of the ending as /ink/ or /nk/; or /onk/ as in ping-pong /pink-ponk/. c’’) Possible confusion: thin,  thing- /think/; ring - /rink/; sin, sing - /sink/; win, wing - /wink/; kin, king - /kink/.  8 “The sounds of two languages may be identical, but the phonologies are different and overall sound too” (Sapir 1921: 53). 
Czaja: Towards a near-native speaker’s pronunciation...                          119 As  opposed  to  the  situation  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  my  teaching   experience   shows   that   the   production   of   these   English  dental  fricatives  /ð/  and /θ/  today,  is  not  such  a  common  and  pervasive  issue  in  Poland  as  it  was  in  the  past.  Nowadays,  most  probably  owing  to  easy  access  to  spoken  English  via  the  radio,  TV,  Internet  or  audio  recordings,  most  learners  tend  to  pronounce  these  consonants  more  or  less  correctly.  Those,  however,  who  have  still  failed  to  master  the  sounds,  traditionally  tend  to  replace  the  /θ/  with  /s/,  or  /f/  or even /t/, e.g. thousand, and /ð/ with /z/ or /dz/, or / or even  /d/,  e.g.  in  the  article  the, which  does  not  cause  major  problems with understanding, but creates a foreign accent. Yet, students  need  to  be  made  aware  of  the  fact  that  occasionally  communication problems may arise, for example, when “thick” happens  to  be  pronounced  as  “sick”,  in  which  case  the  understanding  of  the  message  will  rely  heavily  on  the  context  of  the  utterance.  So,  it  seems  rather  obvious  that  whilst  speaking of a person’s absence, it would be highly unlikely for someone to say that the person is “thick” and confusion would be  avoided.  Still,  with  the  words  below  confusion  or  even  misunderstanding might occur: thin - sin - tin - fin; three, free, tree.   One   of   the   most   common   explanations   offered   by   teachers to students whilst describing the consonants at issue is  that  they  are  “lispy”  sounds.  This  rather  impressionistic  view  is  hardly  precise  and  sufficient  in  my  opinion.  The  teacher  needs  to  demonstrate  the  production  of  the  sounds  and  follow  up  with  a  detailed  description  of  how  and  where  they  are  made,  which  should  be  followed  by  substantial  practice.  As  mentioned  before,  the  consonants  /θ/  and  /ð/  represented in spelling by the th letter cluster are non-existent in Polish, but rather frequent in English mostly due to the fact that  they  occur  in  high-frequency  words  (Cruttenden  1994:  196).9As far as the nasal consonant /ŋ/ (e.g. long, ranking, punk or sing)  is  concerned,  it  is  occasionally,  particularly  in  slow  9  Out  of  the  total  of  60.78%  of  consonants  in  English,  /δ/  occurs  in  3,  56% whereas /θ/ in only 0.37% of running text. 
120                                                                             Beyond Philology 16/1 and  careful  speech,  articulated  as  the  Polish  dental  /n/  followed  by  /k/  due  to  devoicing  of  the  final  /g/.  It  is  worth  pointing out that the production of this nasal /ŋ/ consonant is not  that  difficult  to  explain  to  Polish  students  due  to  the  fact  that the consonant at issue occurs in Polish as an allophone of the Polish /n/ in words such as tango, bank, ręka ‘hand’,łąka‘meadow’, kongres  ‘congress’,  tynk  ‘plaster’.  Hence,  if  nece-ssary, students can be referred to a relatively numerous group of such words for reference and guidance. Speaking of practice and  fun,  it  is  always  challenging  and  revealing  to  learners  to  pronounce  pairs  of  cognates  to  detect  the  subtle  differences  and  resemblances  in  pronunciation  between  them  in  both  languages e.g. tango, mango, drink, congress, bank, gang, ping-pong, ranking.10II. Replacement of /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ /, /dʒ/ with the Polish /ʂ/ or /ɕ/; /ʐ/ or /ʑ/; /ʈ͡ʂ/ or /ɕ/, /ɖ͡ʐ/ or /d̠͡ʑ/ respectively, resulting in:  a) Foreign accent: shop,shock, special, bush;genre, pleasure,leisure,  beige;change, picture, march,church;jazz,  majority, manager, fridge. Even  though  the  frequency  of  occurrence  of  these  English  post-alveolar  fricatives  and  affricates  /ʃ/,  /ʒ/,  /tʃ  /,  /dʒ/,  is  comparatively  low,11  the  Polish  replacements  do  contribute  to    a  noticeable  Polish  accent.  On  the  whole,  Polish  learners,  at  least  initially,  believe  they  have  a  choice  as  to  which  Polish  consonant to choose. i.e. instead of /tʃ /as in choice/ʈ͡ʂ/ or /ʨ/, for /dʒ/ as in June /ɖ͡ʐ/ or /ʥ/, for /ʒ/ as in pleasure /ʐ/ or /ʑ/,  and  for  /ʃ/  as  in  shoes /ʂ/  or  /ɕ/.  However  as  can  be  10 More Polish words for reference and practice of /ŋ/: franki ‘francs’, sęk‘knot’, drąg ‘pole’, piosenka ‘song’, Irenka ‘little Irene’, punkt ‘point’, szranki‘lists’, bankomat ‘cash machine’, dżungla ‘jungle’, pąk ‘bud’, strąg ‘pod’, tynk ‘plaster’, cynk   ‘zink’,   tankowiec   ‘tanker’,   sukienka   ‘dress’,   budynki‘buildings’. 11 /ʃ/  0.96%,  /ʒ/  0.10%,  /tʃ/  0.41%,  /dʒ/  0.60%;  total  of  2.07%  out  of  60.78%. 
Czaja: Towards a near-native speaker’s pronunciation...                          121 heard,  the  overwhelming  majority  tend  to  apply  the  harder  ones /ʈ͡ʂ/, /ɖ͡ʐ/, /ʐ/, /ʂ/ rather than the softer consonants /ʨ/, /ʥ/,  /ʑ/  and  /ɕ/,  since  the  latter  sound  rather  peculiar  and  amusing  even  to  Polish  learners,  e.g.  picture  pronounced  as  /piɕie/ ‘drink’. In order to sound more native, students need to be informed as early as possible that neither option is correct: the  English  consonants  are  produced  in  between  the  Polish  two   respective   variants   in   terms   of   place   of   articulation   (Sobkowiak  2008:  77).  Thus,  learners  should  be  told  that  the  Polish  /ʈ͡ʂ/  is  dental-alveolar  while  the  English  /tʃ  /  is  post-alveolar, and the Polish /ʨ/ palatal; the Polish /ɖ͡ʐ/ is dental-alveolar,  English  /dʒ/  post-alveolar,  and  Polish  /ʥ/  palatal.  Moreover,  the  Polish  /ʂ/  is  dental-alveolar,  English  /ʃ/  post-alveolar, and Polish/ɕ/ is palatal and finally, the Polish /ʐ/ is dental-alveolar,  the  English  /ʒ/  post-alveolar,  and  Polish  /ʑ/ is palatal. These twelve obstruents mark three different points of  contact  between  the  tip/blade  of  the  tongue  and  the  top  teeth for the Polish /ʈ͡ʂ/, /ɖ͡ʐ/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/,12 the post-alveolar area for  the  English  /tʃ/,  /dʒ/,  /ʃ/,  /ʒ/  (Roach  2002:  49)  and  finally,  the  hard  palate  for  the  Polish  consonants  /ʨ/,  /ʥ/, /ɕ/  and  /ʑ/.  Even  though  the  choice  of  one  of  the  Polish  variants  is  unlikely  to  stop  anyone  from  being  understood,13they will sound unnatural and non-native to English speakers. From  the  pedagogical  point  of  view,  an  effective  and  amusing  way of demonstrating the differences in sound to students is to ask  them  to  compare  and  practise  saying  the  English  and  Polish  words  and  sentences  below,  first  the  English  way  and  then  the  Polish  way:  1.  once;  2.  three    times    each;  3.  only  Polish   words   and   sentences;   4.   only   English   words   and   sentences;  5.  Polish  words  and  sentences  with  the  English  sounds;  6.  English  words  and  sentences  with  both  Polish  sounds.                         12 In my own pronunciation I feel them to be more dental-alveolar rather than  alveolar  as  most  Polish  phoneticians  claim  (Porzuczek  2016:  31,  Gussmann 2007: 6-7). 13 Usually they choose the dental-alveolar harder variants. 
122                                                                             Beyond Philology 16/1 1. czapa ‘big cap’ – chopper  –  ciapa  ‘oaf’                                     Ale czapa! ‘What a big cap!’         What a chopper!Ale ciapa! ‘What an oaf!’                                                  2. John(ek) ‘little John’ – John – dzion(ek)  ‘little day’                  Ale  szczęśliwy John(ek)!    ‘What  a  happy  John  /  Johnny!’                     Ale szczęśliwy  dzionek!‘What a happy little day!’                                     3. leżę  ‘I’m lying’ – leisure – lezie  ‘He’s trudging along’    Ja sobie leżę.  ‘I’m having a lie-down.’   at leisure‘On lezie’ ‘He’s shuffling along’                                   Gdzie  mi  tu  lezie,  jak  ja  leżę?  ‘Where  do  you  think  you’re  going?! I’m in bed.’  4. proszę ‘please’ – pressure        –        prosię‘pig’Ależ proszę! ‘By all means!’             Ależ prosię! ‘What a pig !’        Proszę to prosię! ‘I’ll take this pig, please!’                                                  As normally happens, Polish learners realize and learn that the English  sounds  ‘localised’  between  the  two  Polish  consonant  places   of   articulation,   though   similar,   are   not   identical.   Conversely, English students learning Polish will have realized that the English consonants which they have at their disposal, are not sufficient to pronounce Polish words correctly without causing  confusion.  Hence,  they  need  to  master  two  new  sounds ‘situated’ on both sides of their English consonants to avoid  making  use  of  their  English  post-alveolars  to  cover  in  each  case  the  two  Polish  outwardly  similar  consonants.  In  effect  they  would  sound  more  like  native  Polish  speakers  and  avoid  bringing  about  confusion  or  misunderstandings.  For  instance,   Ja   cieszę   się/czeszę   się   when   spoken   by   an   Englishman who has in his segment repertoire only the sound /tʃ/  to  substitute  for  the  Polish  /ʨ/ or /ʈ͡ʂ/,would most likely be  pronounced  identically  as  /tʃeʃə/,  as  in  Cheshire  Cat,  and  could  be  extremely  confusing,  not  to  mention  amusing,  to  Poles  who  might  understand  it  as  ‘I  comb  (my  hair)’  or  ‘I  am  glad’.  Likewise,  the  question  /tʃeʃəʃʃə?/  might  be  interpreted  
Czaja: Towards a near-native speaker’s pronunciation...                          123 either as Cieszysz się meaning ‘Are you glad?’ or Czeszesz się?meaning  ‘Do  you  comb  (your  hair)?’.  Fortunately,  no  such  misunderstandings  are  likely  to  occur  when  any  of  the  Polish  consonants are used to ‘cover’ the English ones by Poles, they will  only  have  a  foreign  accent,  which  still,  in  the  case  of  professionals  such  as  English  teachers  or  interpreters  should  be  reduced  as  much  as  possible.  All  in  all,  it  should  be  stressed  that  confusion  or  misunderstandings  will  be  more  frequent  and  common  on  the  English  side,  when  English  learners  of  Polish  begin  substituting  the  Polish  ‘pairs’  with  their English single consonants. III. Replacement of /k/ with the Polish /x/ resulting in: a) Foreign accent: chemical,  technology,chronology,  technical,characteristic,   architecture,chemistry,   polytechnic,chorus,technique,  technician,character,chronic,  hierarchy,chaos,technological,choir,chronological,charisma,    masochist,cholesterol,Christmas,choral. This  is  a  common  and  frequent  substitution  made  by  Poles,  which   clearly   appears   to   be   influenced   by   the   Polish   pronunciation  of  cognates  which  look  and  sound  similar.  Students’  attention  needs  to  be  constantly  drawn  to  the  fact  that  the  English  letter  cluster  ch  is  never  pronounced  as  /h/  or  the  Polish  velar  /x/,  but  predominantly  as  /tʃ/  e.g.  chair, bachelor,   lunch,   or   as   /k/   shown   in   the   words   above.   Although it is undeniably tempting and effortless to resort to something learners already know, like reading ch as /h/ from Polish  instead  of  embarking  upon  a  new  learning  process,  students should be encouraged to stay alert and to check their pronunciation whenever they encounter words spelt with ch. It is  important  that  students  realise  this  small  detail  might  upgrade   their   English   accent   considerably   if   they   only   remembered to make the switch from /x/ to /k/. In this way, fewer   instances   of   voiceless   friction   (so   characteristic   of   a  Polish  accent)  would  be  produced.  Learners  should  be  
124                                                                             Beyond Philology 16/1 reminded that the letter cluster ch is never realized in English as  the  Polish  /x/;  /k/  or  /tʃ/  are  the  only  available  options.  Polish phonics, according to which ch is read as /x/, must notbe carelessly followed. Finally, a word of caution: beware of the possible  mispronunciation  of  the  word  chore,  which  when  pronounced the Polish way with /x/ might sound like whore.  IV. Replacement of /s/ with the Polish /t͡s/ or /st͡s/ resulting in:  a) Foreign accent: certificate, concentrate, specific, fascinating,participate,  concert,  discipline,scenario,  pharmacist,scenery,recipe,scissors,  recession,cinema,  facilitate,  accept,  decision,specialist,  process,centre,cylinder,  deficit,city,civic,cigar,receipt, pharmacy.Another common pronunciation error of Polish learners is the replacement  of  the  English  consonant  sound  /s/  with  the  Polish  consonant  /t͡s/  or  even  pronouncing  both  sounds  one  after the other /st͡s/ when the spelling so indicates.  Again,  in  both  cases  the  main  cause  of  the  erroneous  pronunciations  seems  to  be  the  spelling.  When  listening  to  Polish  learners  mispronouncing  words  in  this  way,  it  is  evident  to  a  Polish  native  speaker  that  they  simply  follow  Polish  phonics  rules  when pronouncing English words, ignoring or rather failing to apply   the   English   possibilities   (English   phonics).   Another   possible    reason    for    this    issue    might    be    the    Polish    pronunciation  of  cognates.  Everyone  tends  to  resort  to  this  strategy,   automatically   and   frequently   adopting   the   L1   pronunciation as correct in the L2. This approach, which relies upon learners’ guesses without recourse to a dictionary check, often  leads  to  the  adoption  of  ‘approximate’  pronunciations,  which  become  fossilized  and  extremely  difficult  to  eradicate  later on. As regards possible solutions, Polish students should be continually reminded that the letter c is never read as /t͡s/as it is in Polish, but is typically read as /k/ e.g. Canada, coca cola, cross  or  as  the  sound/s/as  in  the  examples  above.  It  
Czaja: Towards a near-native speaker’s pronunciation...                          125 needs to be stressed that nowadays, with computer and online dictionaries   available,   checking   the   pronunciation   of   new   words immediately should become a fixed routine for learners to  avoid  ‘inventing’  their  ‘approximate’  Polish  pronunciations.  In addition, learners must be made aware of the fact that there are   innumerable   cognates   in   English   and   Polish,   whose   pronunciations  are  deceptive  and  misleading,  e.g.  the  word  alibi is pronounced in Polish /aˈlibi/ and in English /ˈæləbaɪ/; region /ˈrɛgjɔn/  in  English  /ˈri:dʒən/; minister /miˈnister/  in  English  /ˈmɪnɪstə/, analysis  is  /əˈnælɪsɪs/  and  not  /anaˈlizɨs/, diploma  is  /dɪpˈləʊmə/  in  English,  not  /ˈdɨplɔm/  etc.  Because  of this, such words should immediately alert students in terms of possible problems with pronunciation. V. Replacement of /s/ with the Polish /z/ resulting in: a) Foreign accent: 1) crisis, exclusive, basis, inclusive, isolated,fantasy,   emphasis,   disappear,   leasing,   increasing, useless,closer, execute, ecstasy, releasing, base, philosophy, dishonest,use-noun,  loose,  episode,   analysis,  disappointing,  disagree,curiosity,   decreasing,   comparison,   hypnosis,   thesis, isolate,isolation, philosophical, advertisement, purchasing, oasis, insist,consist, consist,  mus(t)n’t,  facebook, baseball.The  next  common  consonant  replacement  “notoriously”  used  by  Poles  is  the  English  consonant  /s/  substituted  with  the  Polish /z/. It must be stressed that this switch might be fairly surprising  and  somewhat  unexpected  to  an  English  ear  from  Poles, and therefore, learners’ attention should be drawn to it and action should be taken to eradicate it as soon as possible. It  paradoxically  creates  a  foreign,  non-Polish  accent  and,  to  native  speakers,  which  is  perceived  predominantly  as  ‘hissy  and  rustley’  in  sound,  on  account  of  the  general  tendency  of  Polish learners to devoice rather than voice. As for the causes of  this  ‘unexpected’  substitution,  it  appears  obvious  that  this  time the source of the error is not the spelling. As can be seen, in  the  majority  of  the  cases  in  group  a),  the  /z/  voicing  
126                                                                             Beyond Philology 16/1 happens in the intervocalic position, which might suggest that voiceless  consonants  should  be  voiced  in  this  environment.  This  however,  does  not  prove  to  be  justified  since  Polish  phonology  permits  both  voiceless  and  voiced  consonants  in  mid-word  position  e.g.  pasuje  ‘fits’,  pozuje  ‘poses’,  nasuwa ‘prompts’, nazywa ‘calls’.  The  main  cause  of  this  type  of  mispronunciation  seems  to  be  the  Polish  pronunciation  of  cognates  where  /z/  is  used  instead  /s/  e.g.  extasy/ekstaza, crisis/kryzys, basis/baza. Another possible explanation could be  that  Polish  learners  incorrectly  extend  the  Polish  rule  concerning compulsory consonant cluster voicing agreement,14which  does  not  apply  in  English.  Accordingly,  voicing  occurs  and  produces  a  foreign  accent.  As  for  corrective  tips,  a  useful  exercise is asking learners to say some Polish words in which they have to replace the medial /s/ with /z/. This allows them to  experience  how  ‘odd’  such  a  substitution  sounds  to  native  speakers, e.g.  posada ‘position’,  masywny ‘massive’, zasuwać,‘to dash along’, kasować‘punch (a ticket)’, prasować‘to iron’.15This unnatural pronunciation for northern Poland (from where the  author  originates)  enables  learners  to  understand  how  English people might feel when they mispronounce such words in this way. By  way  of  explanation,  it  needs  to  be  pointed  out  that    a small set of words exists in which the opposite foreign accent marking  process  described  later  in  section  IX  takes  place,  where  loss  of  voicing  occurs.  This  set  is  composed  of  a  very  limited   number   of   cognates   whose   Polish   pronunciation   involves   /s/   and   the   English   /z/   e.g.   cosmetic,   cosmos, cosmopolitan,   cosmology,   resort,   cosmonaut,  which  is  mis-leading   to   a   Polish   learner. Moreover, it   is   also   worth   14  The  second  sound  in  a  cluster  determines  the  presence  or  absence  of  voicing in the preceding consonant, e.g. in the word podgrupa ‘subgroup’ the voiced /g/ keeps the /d/ voiced, but in podstawa  `basis`,  the voiceless /s/ makes  the  preceding  /d/  into  a  voiceless  /t/.  Consequently,  the  “Polish”  pronunciations of  baseball,  blackbird  and  footballwill contain the clusters/zb/, /gb/ and /db/ respectivelyinstead of /sb/, /kb/ and /tb/. 15 In Southern Polish though, such voicing is encountered e.g. poszliśmy‘we   went’,   wygraliśmy   ‘we   won’,   byliśmy   ‘we   were’,   SLD ‘Alliance   of   Democratic Socialists’, jeśli ‘if’. 
Czaja: Towards a near-native speaker’s pronunciation...                          127 mentioning  that  with  some  words  both  pronunciations  /z/  or  /s/ are acceptable e.g. exit, absurd, dishonest or Muslim,16 but this appears to be a regional accent feature – in the standard English  of  southern  Britain  it  is  more  common  to  apply  the  /s/ pronunciations.  As  far  as  pedagogy  is  concerned,  learners  must  be  made  aware  of  the  problems  and  advised  to  opt  for  the  safer  “northern  Polish”  pronunciation  with  /s/  to  keep  the  RP  accent  consistent,  even  when  two  possibilities  exist.  This  /s/  to  /z/  switch  is  also  common  among  Indian  speakers  of  English,  which  Polish  students  find  amusing  to  listen  to,  and  therefore may be a factor in whether or not they choose to use it. VI. Replacement of the alveolar ridge consonants /n, t, d, s, l, z/ with their Polish dental near-equivalents resulting in:  a) Foreign accent As   mentioned   earlier,   one   of   the   key   changes   regarding   consonants  that  Polish  students  should  remember  to  make,  but frequently fail to implement, is to move the articulation of the  Polish  sounds  /n, t, d, s, l, z/17from  the  upper  teeth  to  the  alveolar  ridge.  This  location  is  the  most  vital  place  of  articulation for English and learners should be made aware of it  at  the  earliest  possible  opportunity.  These  English  alveolar  consonants  (except  when  /t/  and  /d/  are  followed  by  /r/  in  which case, they become post-alveolar) are the most frequently occurring  consonants  in  English,  which  along  with  the  most  common vowels /ə, ɪ, e, aɪ, ʌ, eɪ / (Cruttenden 1994: 136, from Fry  1947)  constitute  the  basis  of  the  English  Articulatory  setting   (Honikman   1964:   76).18   Although   their   Polish   dentalisation  does  not  bring  about  a  change  in  meaning,  it  16 Both /s/ or  /z/  possible:  disgrace,  dismiss,  forensic,  fantasy,  exit, dishonest,  translate,  absurd,  dismay,    disorder,  prosodic,  Islamic,  Muslim, persist, visa, resource, absorb. 17  I  have  included  /l/  as  a  dental  lateral  in  Polish  after  Reszkiewicz    (1981: 90). I have observed that the way I pronounce is also more dental. 18 Honikman includes also the post-alveolar “r” consonant  in this group.  


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