Tag Archives: Karolina Sztokfisz

Winter Olympic pronunciation tip: sz – Polish vs. Hungarian

With the Winter Olympics, you’ll see a slight increase in the number of Eastern European names you haven’t encountered before, including a definite uptick in ones containing sz. Most of those will be Polish or Hungarian. And that’s where the trouble starts, because it doesn’t sound the same in Hungarian as it does in Polish. So I’m going to tell you how to say not just sz but every available combination of c, s, and z in each of the two languages.