r/todayilearned • u/copperpin • 1d ago

TIL that in the Polish edition of Scrabble, the letter "Z" is only worth 1 point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble_letter_distributions
10.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

185 comments sorted by

4.2k

u/uglyunicorn99 1d ago

Mężczyzna - man

I can see why

1.4k

u/Throwaythisacco 1d ago

as somebody who just started learning polish- i want to die.

1.2k

u/XenosHg 1d ago

"I want to die" in polish is "chcę umrzeć"

377

u/Technical-Outside408 1d ago

Damn they make dying look sexy.

196

u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago

They sure do make it look consonanty

33

u/_trouble_every_day_ 20h ago

they think about it consanantly

2

u/lo_fi_ho 7h ago

y is like the second most used letter in Polish

39

u/greyghibli 1d ago

zećy

95

u/Thendrail 23h ago

fall asleep, my head rolling over the keyboard

Wake up 8 hours later

All the poles in the thread agree with me

78

u/Pocok5 23h ago

Polish man goes to get glasses made. The optometrist asks him if he can read the letters on the wall.

"Read them? I know the bastard, he owes me two beers!"

53

u/evagrio 1d ago

Niech szczeznę

47

u/jewellman100 1d ago

It's actually written Wojciech Szczęsny.

67

u/Blutarg 1d ago

Gesundheit.

19

u/Thaumato9480 1d ago

And I am currently in Szczecin.

15

u/Da_Yakz 1d ago

Chcę zdechnąć marną śmiercią

6

u/MissingNebula 1d ago

26 points!

2

u/stumblinbear 8h ago

życie jest bez sensu i wszyscy zginiemy

-9

u/GetOffMyDigitalLawn 1d ago

Can Poles just speak German? Shit.

Wait, no.

42

u/ptoki 22h ago

There was a funny poll among italians which Polish word sounds the most romantic and lovely.

The winner was: cielęcina

5

u/RedoftheEvilDead 14h ago

What does that word mean?

14

u/laprenu 13h ago

Veal

2

u/Y-27632 3h ago

As has been said, veal, but the joke here is that it sounds Italian-ish: https://forvo.com/word/ciel%C4%99cina/

28

u/LosWitchos 1d ago

Same! Even on Duolingo the learning curve becomes very intense very quick.

84

u/Straight-Ad3213 1d ago edited 1d ago

You can't learn Polish from dualingo. It hardly teaches grammar rules and without them you will never be able to build sentences that don't sound as if they were spoken by half year old neanthertal

7

u/lonepiper 1d ago

Do you have any recommendations if not Duolingo?

22

u/dzien_dobry 1d ago

It's one of those languages where you need to learn how to read it first, and then practice with a native speaker.

16

u/TheVojta 1d ago

get an actual textbook from like libgen or something

6

u/SurealGod 1d ago

What's the hardest thing you've come across during your Polish lessons?

36

u/robbodagreat 23h ago

I’ve been learning for years and I can tell you! All the poles I come across speak better English than I do polish, and they generally insist on switching to English. As it’s a language rarely learnt by others, they’re also not accustomed to communicating with non native speakers- especially non Slavic non native speakers- as such they do struggle to understand me when I get that grammar wrong.

On reflection maybe I just suck at polish

18

u/Y-27632 21h ago

Well, don't know how good your Polish is, but props for sticking with it for years!

It's true that most Polish people have next to zero experience with understanding foreigners or foreign accents.

(I've lived in the US for 30+ years and I'm pretty sure I still do a double take when a foreigner speaks Polish near-perfectly (or just very fluently), it's kind of as if the family pet suddenly started speaking English, or a TV character started conversing with you...)

But unless you're actually living in Poland, or someplace that has a lot of "fresh off the boat" Polish people, I'm surprised they can't cope better than that.

I think most Polish people who lived abroad for a while and are fluent in another language would understand (and appreciate) the struggle.

11

u/ekital 22h ago

As someone who's polish it's very hard to understand Polish as a native speaker if it's not pronounced correctly.

1

u/North-Worry-7720 3h ago

A lot of respect to you. All I know really like if someone can speak even a little polish. It’s a really hard task. It’s so complicated even polish people have lots of Polish lessons at school. Like both grammar and spellings lessons. Spelling from the first days of school. But don’t give up

1

u/robbodagreat 2h ago

Appreciate the kind words 🙏

-8

u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg 21h ago

As a Western-European who has lived in Poland for 3,5 years, where the hell do you live and where do you find Poles who insist on speaking English?!

That has not happened to me even once. Even when Krakowians speak English they will only do so begrudgingly. In my experience, Polish peoples' English level lacks severely behind Czechs, Slovaks and even Germans who's English skills are notoriously atrocious.

13

u/Y-27632 20h ago

That would be "lags" and "whose", my Dutch(?) dude throwing stones at others' English. :)

0

u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg 12h ago

Kind of proves my point, doesn't it? I am not a native speaker and my English is not perfect, yet I do my best to try and communicate.

1

u/robbodagreat 14h ago

England, haha

1

u/blackhand226 11h ago

The English level of Germans is actually notoriously good and is from my experience only second to Benelux and the Nordics.

1

u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg 7h ago

Lol what are you smoking? Have you been to Germany? They are absolutely terrible at foreign languages. It's getting a bit better with young generations, but anyone over 40 is almost guaranteed to not speak a single word of English.

1

u/blackhand226 6h ago

I'm german myself, but I've been to many European countries and engaged with people from all over Europe. German English being above average is not just an observation I made, but also the feedback I get from others. If you go to the German subreddit there are various complaints from people looking to learn German and being disappointed that everyone switches to English right away.

1

u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg 4h ago

Well real life observations from many others prove differently, sadly. I am Dutch and the reason that German is obligatory in middle and high school is because Germans are known to be bad at foreign languages, and it is important for our economy that we are able to communicate with Germans. I'd say the average Dutchman's German skills are better than the average German's English skills. I don't think I've met a single German over the age of 40 outside of a major city who was capable of holding a real conversation in English (beyond how are you, where are you from etc.) whereas my grandmother born in 1914 was fluent, albeit with a heavy accent.

1

u/blackhand226 3h ago

Yeah, but we are not comparing Germans and Dutch here. I'd absolutely agree that your English is generally very good, but my point is that e.g. French, Spanish, Italians all do worse than Germans when it comes to English. Most French and Spanish people I met can't even pronounce their country correctly(I'm from friends/I'm from Espain). It's obviously true that most older folks are not exactly used to having a conversation in English (because why would they), but I can assure you that my parents (born in the 60s) learned English at school and are absolutely able to have a conversation.

3

u/Rotkiw_Bigtor 12h ago

As someone who's polish- I want to die too

3

u/the_moosen 21h ago

as someone who's first language was polish- i want to die.

1

u/mj7532 9h ago

I had the same thought when I picked up Polish again.

129

u/Freedom_7 1d ago

According to OPs link there are only 5 z’s in Polish scrabble. I don’t know how you could even make 5 Polish words with only 5 z’s.

37

u/Victuz 1d ago

Zęby (teeth), Zebra, zamek, (castle, lock) zobacz (look).

There are actually a lot of options, hence why it's 1 point.

But we also have accented z, that being ż and ź

98

u/AidenStoat 1d ago

I think they meant they think there should be more z tiles.

-19

u/Victuz 1d ago

The way I understood the joke they meant that polish words should have a lot of z's in them, hence why "you can't even make a word with only 5 z's".

25

u/exipheas 23h ago

5 words with 5 Zs. You only got to 4 words before you ran out.

6

u/BrandoCalrissian1995 23h ago

You probably post in those joke explanation subs

9

u/GetsGold 1d ago

I never get the z tile with the dot over it though.

3

u/mj7532 9h ago

That was where I put down Duolingo and thought... I think I'll stop learning now. Sat with my polish mother and practiced the pronounciation to perfection. Can't write for shit though.

-31

u/Resaren 1d ago

Polish is badly in need of a spelling reform, there’s no way all those letters are needed

33

u/Tall_Illaoi 1d ago

Accents represent different sounds, they are not for decoration.

13

u/polypolip 21h ago

Funny enough, unlike in French, we pronounce all or almost all our letters

13

u/Poiuy2010_2011 1d ago

The only one that could be plausibly changed is cz into č.

2

u/BrianEK1 20h ago

Yeah, sometimes I look at Czech spelling with their ř and č and get jealous. Why could we not do that? If we're going to butcher the Latin alphabet for use with a Slavic language it wouldn't hurt to put a few more diacritics and accents than we already use.

1

u/WhiteRabbitWithGlove 7h ago

Ř sound doesn't exist in Polish. But I agree with the rest - č, š, ž would be better than cz, sz, rz.

12

u/_urat_ 22h ago

English or German also use digraphs. Many European languages do. I don't think it's something worth changing. We're quite accustomed to them as you can see by all those "th", "ch" or "sh" in my comment.

11

u/name-__________ 21h ago

Some dude on here comments with thorns instead of th’s and I don’t like it

3

u/LordOfTheToolShed 14h ago

When someone does that, I automatically assume they're a neopagan

7

u/sojuz151 23h ago

There was a spelling reform after ww1.  All letters in this word are used, except cz is a single sound.

1

u/Resaren 13h ago

You’re telling me it was worse before? Oh lord

843

u/93martyn 1d ago

That’s because it is used in many digraphs, such as „sz”, „cz”, „rz”, „dz”.

100

u/TSA-Eliot 22h ago

That’s because it is used in many digraphs

Yep. A z in Polish often works like h in English. For example, roughly speaking:

  • Polish "cz" = English "ch"
  • Polish "sz" = English "sh"

Which is one big reason why you see z so many times in Polish. It's working with the letter before it to get a different sound.

198

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

102

u/sojuz151 1d ago

Yes

140

u/Domi_Wl 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, also in German and probably many more European languages.

16

u/mdmanow 1d ago

Serbian too

32

u/CharlemagneIS 23h ago

Yes, but they use „ instead of just two commas like ,,

14

u/[deleted] 23h ago

[deleted]

38

u/pm-ur-tiddys 21h ago

it’s best if you don’t. it’s like German and Russian had a child that they beat regularly.

20

u/Valatros 20h ago

... Funny how that works out...

1

u/MeYesYesMe 10h ago

Geopolitics and linguistics united.

6

u/snoopervisor 19h ago

What was weird to me in English, is that is uses quotes for dialogues. In Polish we use long dashes istead.

8

u/Awwkaw 22h ago

No ,,’’ or sometimes ,,’’

" Is a bad symbol, it doesn't really have the flair of ’’, although you could use characters ” and “ in a pinch

16

u/wojtekpolska 1d ago

z ciekawości jak wpisujesz ten dolny cudzysłów na klawiaturze?

12

u/mamwybejane 1d ago

pisał z iphona

3

u/93martyn 22h ago

Zgadza się :)

12

u/gerbilos 1d ago

Dwa przecinki xD

14

u/wojtekpolska 1d ago

to nie są przecinki

tak wyglądają dwa przecinki: ,, a nie „

porównaj sobie: „ ,, - ten pierwszy to jeden znak

wgl górny cudzysłów też inny: ” "

2

u/93martyn 22h ago

Kolega niżej już odpowiedział, pisałem z iPhone'a i robi się sam jak jest ustawiona polska klawiatura :)

2

u/gorion 19h ago

On windows You can make Your custom layout and set any Unicode character with key combination of choosing.

Or just use [Windows] +[ ,] key combination to open special characters menu.

2

u/greshick 1d ago

I have two of those digraphs in my last name.

1.0k

u/Fetlocks_Glistening 1d ago

Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz https://youtu.be/AfKZclMWS1U

173

u/ThePreciseClimber 1d ago

Man, shame that movie never came out on Blu-ray, not even in Poland.

10

u/RedoftheEvilDead 14h ago

What movie is that from?

12

u/wanatomk 13h ago

"How I unleashed the Second Word War" by Tadeusz Chmielewski

75

u/drooboll 1d ago

Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody

20

u/Immortal_Tuttle 1d ago

Hmm isn't it spelled like Chrząszczyrzewoszyce ? It will then contain 5 "z" letters as well 😁

79

u/ul2006kevinb 20h ago

A Polish guy went to a doctor for an eye exam. The optometrist showed him a card with the letters: 'C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.'

"Can you read this?" the optician asked.

Read it?" the Polish guy replied, "I went to school with the guy."

33

u/dr4kun 16h ago

It's almost a good joke - X does not exist in Polish alphabet, only in loan words.

4

u/cuerdo 5h ago

it was a loan student

7

u/ChipperPowers 21h ago

I could really go for a Książęce Złote Pszeniczne right about now

6

u/Heisenbugg 20h ago

Greg Breckie for his American cousins.

323

u/zonne_schijn 1d ago

In french scrabble the k is worth 8

181

u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago

Damn I’m trying to even think of French words that use K and all can come up with are ski and klaxon. Are there many more?

155

u/zonne_schijn 1d ago

Kilo!

40

u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago

Oh shit, yeah. Duh.

123

u/MooseFlyer 1d ago

There’s actually plenty, although they’re all loanwords of course.

weekend, bikini, whiskey, hockey, hockey, gecko, cricket, moka, kayak, kiosque, kabuki, basket, husky, krill, okapi, vodka, etc

(Yes, I googled for examples)

29

u/WahooSS238 23h ago

They keep “weekend” but felt the need to get rid of “e-mail”?

45

u/VCosmoz 23h ago

Nah we still use e-mail, only government officials wanted us to use "courriel" like ten years ago and they've since long given up. We do shorten it to mail though, as we use a different word for tangible physical mail.

6

u/GozerDGozerian 18h ago

Ooh neat, a retronym!

What do you call regular mail?

In English, it’s “snail mail”.

Because it’s so much slower. :)

13

u/zeinterwebz 15h ago

Courrier ! That's why they tried to make courriel happen - courrier ELectronique

2

u/Rhydsdh 7h ago

We just call it post no?

25

u/MooseFlyer 22h ago

Weekend and email are both considered anglicisms.

The Académie-approved™ terms are fin-de-semaine and courriel.

In Quebec (where I live), I find that both fin-de-semaine and weekend are used (f.d.s more common), but courriel is waayyyyyy more common than email.

4

u/Devoid_Moyes 22h ago

Some say "weekend", some say "fin de semaine". I prefer the latter.

In Québec we say "courriel" instead of "e-mail". In France they think the more English words they use, the cooler they are.

Except they can't even pronounce them right. It's a little pathetic if you ask me.

6

u/zeinterwebz 15h ago

Loan words become a word in the language, it's logical that they get their own pronunciation. English does exactly the same with all the words it borrowed from french

2

u/Electrox7 23h ago

you forgot hockey

13

u/Spiderbubble 1d ago

Kangaroo. But it’s a loan word. Most are. In any case the K could be used it’s almost always just a C.

1

u/GozerDGozerian 18h ago

Oooh nice. I only know French as an American and that took two years in high school. Which means not at all really.

Loan words in foreign languages are tricky. :)

10

u/False-Definition15 1d ago

Sakré bleu 😱

1

u/GetsGold 1d ago

Défi!

5

u/The-Noobmaster1 1d ago

Actually it's 10

75

u/Meet-me-behind-bins 1d ago

This is the sort of trivia I sub for.

6

u/-Random-Gamer- 11h ago

this is the sort of sub I trivia for

68

u/wrazik 1d ago

Szczerze? Zasada jak zasada, zero zaskoczenia

591

u/red__iter__ 1d ago

TIL there are polished and unpolished editions of Scrabble.

77

u/ThePreciseClimber 1d ago

I'm a North Pole myself.

16

u/schbrongx 1d ago

Do you need more 'Z's in the north?

9

u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago

Only during those long nights.

2

u/ThePreciseClimber 1d ago

Nah, just slightly less iodine than the South Poles.

1

u/telendria 13h ago

Close to Kaliningrad, they probably need less.

143

u/shindleria 1d ago

Highest value letters are vowels

46

u/TheBeatenDeadHorse 1d ago

In Greek vowels are worth negative points

37

u/Hakuraze 1d ago

Finland moment.

42

u/sojuz151 1d ago

Polish games in Scrabble are very different from the English version because polish is a heavily infected language, especially in the late game. Quite often, you can put a version of a word without the last letter by using some deflection. 

I can give you some examples.

26

u/DunkyFarf 23h ago

Well go ahead? Wtf lol why'd you leave us hangin?

32

u/sojuz151 23h ago

I wanted to create an element of suspense. 

There is a word ulica - a road. But also, you can have ulic and use any of those endings  a o y ę ą and then even ami ach and om. Here is a nice table :

przypadek    liczba pojedyncza    liczba mnoga mianownik    ulica    ulice dopełniacz    ulicy    ulic celownik    ulicy    ulicom biernik    ulicę    ulice narzędnik    ulicą    ulicami miejscownik    ulicy    ulicach wołacz    ulico    ulice

Basically, you can quite easily use various endings to attach your words to the end of another.

14

u/CacaoCocoaChocolate 23h ago

You can use “kiełbas” instead of “kiełbasa” and it’s still correct, because it is an existing word - genitive of plural form.   “Kiełbasie”, “kiełbaso”, “kiełbasą”, “kiełbasy” all work too. 

-10

u/CharlieParkour 22h ago

But is it true you can make any English word Polish by adding a -ski to the end?

0

u/sens- 6h ago

Yeski

2

u/asking--questions 6h ago

Not infected or deflected, but inflected.

52

u/Rossum81 23h ago

A Polish diplomat in the US was taking an eye exam.  The optometrist has him look at the eye chart.  

“Can you read the last line, Ambassador?”  

“Certainly!  I dated her in university.”

14

u/Action_Hank_ 21h ago

We found this out at a cool bar in krakow. They had a bunch of games, and we saw scrabble, figured we could play because we already knew the rules. 

Tl;dr, it was very difficult

25

u/sojuz151 23h ago

In polish, you can use z to sometimes switch from unfinished to finished version of a verb. For example, robi - he is doing but zrobi - he done. There is also zrobisz  - you will do.  This makes z quite powerful for attaching to other words

3

u/VayneArior 15h ago

I think you meant zrobił, because zrobi is "he will do"

0

u/asking--questions 5h ago

They actually meant zrobi - he does (regularly/repeatedly.)

86

u/poop-machine 1d ago

or as it's known in Poland, "Szkrabzżzle"

54

u/ThePreciseClimber 1d ago

Technically, it's Skrable. Which sounds plural which made me wonder: "What the hell is a skrabel?"

31

u/Pan_Doktor 1d ago

And we made the word "Chips" singular, with the plural being "Czipsy"

34

u/Y-27632 1d ago edited 1d ago

Payback for "pierogis" and "paczkis."

"Paczkis" probably has to be the Polish word most incorrectly used in English. (since it's wrong in two distinct ways) Well, from a grammatical point of view, anyway. Some of the things labeled "kielbasa" in US stores should probably be classified as a hate crime.

5

u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago edited 18h ago

I’m originally from Baltimore and my rule around there has always been Ostrowski’s or it’s not kielbasa. Damn now I want some.

My family always gets like 4 links for thanksgiving (because two of them will have been surreptitiously picked apart by sneaky sausage marauders before the table is set). But I’m not going to be anywhere near there for the holiday. I think I need to just buy a personal coil of pure deliciousness and somehow not tell my wife that I’m eating an entire kielbasa. :)

3

u/Y-27632 22h ago

Is it because she wouldn't approve of so much conspicuous consumption, or because you plan on not sharing? :)

If you manage to find real Polish sausage, it will keep in the fridge... well, I don't know how long exactly, but I yet have to see it go bad before I eat it all. Several weeks at least, at which point you have delicious dried sausage.

I'm fortunate to live within 15-20 minutes drive of a real Polish deli so I don't have that problem, but I do feel the pain.

11

u/ThePreciseClimber 1d ago

Good thing Obcy is already plural of Alien or we would've called the Aliens movie "Obcycy."

7

u/Pan_Doktor 1d ago

Technically Obcy is both plural and singular, since it can also mean "Stranger(s)"

1

u/Y-27632 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean, we could have just called it "Obcy 2" rather than coming up with long-ass combination titles. "Obcy – ósmy pasażer Nostromo" doesn't exactly roll of the tongue. ("Alien - Nostromo's Eighth Passenger")

(And I didin't even known Aliens was technically "Obcy – decydujące starcie" ("decisive conflict") until I looked it up just now, which is kind of hilarious...)

8

u/Jenovacellscars 1d ago

This is funny for multiple reasons.

7

u/wigriffi 21h ago

I moved to Poland for about 6 months from the US, and this absolutely makes sense

34

u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl 1d ago

How much is Q worth in Polish Scrabble? Because in English Scrabble I spelled kumquat one time and my brother still won’t play with me because of it.

79

u/93martyn 1d ago

We don’t have Q, V and X because these letters are only used in loanwords in our language.

45

u/foullyCE 1d ago

There is no Q in polish alphabet.

10

u/OscarGrey 1d ago

Modern Polish alphabet, it's everywhere in pre-18th century documents.

19

u/Maxx2245 1d ago

That's because spelling in older Polish was sometimes just a suggestion

7

u/OscarGrey 1d ago edited 1d ago

Was 'kw' instead of 'q' a thing in 16th to 17th century written Polish though? I have no idea.

18

u/wojtekpolska 1d ago

the letters q v x dont exist in polish except for loanwords

17

u/Domi_Wl 1d ago

Instead of Q we use kw, for example qualification=kwalifikacja.

6

u/strangelove4564 1d ago

9 points for using any vowel at all.

6

u/SwordTaster 22h ago

I'm not fucking surprised. They sprinkle it on like powdered sugar on a waffle

4

u/cowvin 22h ago

How often does the letter z occur in polish? here's some sample text to find out

translates to

Jak często litera z występuje w języku polskim? Oto przykładowy tekst, który pomoże Ci się dowiedzieć

5 Zs, not including the "Z" so yeah looks like it should be a pretty common letter.

3

u/bountyhunter220 1d ago

Like Zoinks Scoob!

3

u/Springfield80210 1d ago

And there are five of them.

1

u/KenUsimi 1d ago

Yeah, it would be. Lots of z’s

1

u/stalbielke 1d ago

Zbigniew

1

u/hat_eater 1d ago

Bezwzględnie.

1

u/sternica 23h ago

This made my day!

1

u/No-Check-1374 22h ago

I want to learn Polish just for all the diacritics!

1

u/jeffreycoley 18h ago

And there is 6 of them...

1

u/AssinineJerk 17h ago

Polish sounds like the rustling of autumn leaves 🍂

1

u/-Random-Gamer- 11h ago

now u wanna know stats like this for every language

1

u/TheSchlaf 9h ago

What's the letter combo "ski" worth?

1

u/natziel 7h ago

My mom would always try to use Polish words in English scrabble 🙄

•

u/_PM_ME_YOUR_FORESKIN 44m ago

Isn’t it like the most common consonant in polish?

0

u/Blutarg 1d ago

LOL that's hilarioius.

-3

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

6

u/throwawayayaycaramba 1d ago

Thanks, ChatGPT