Ż ż — żet
«żet» is a consonant of the Polish script, read as “zh (as in "measure")”. A hard zh, like the s of "measure". The digraph rz makes the same sound — the difference is spelling only. For example, in the word “żona” — wife. The Polish alphabet has 32 letters in total. The dot over ż is a memory of an older sound. rz sounds exactly the same: rzeka is "ZHEH-kah" — and choosing between ż and rz is the spelling headache of the Poles themselves. It appears, for example, in the word “można” — may, one can.
In short
| Character | Ż ż |
| Name | żet |
| Sound | zh (as in "measure") |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 32nd of 32, before it comes ź, appears in 248 words of this site.
How to type Ż ż
- On a phone: press and hold z on the keyboard, and ż appears among the variants. If it does not, add the Polish keyboard in the keyboard settings.
- In Word on Windows: type U+017C and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 017C.
- Unicode code points: ż — U+017C, Ż — U+017B. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A hard zh, like the s of "measure". The digraph rz makes the same sound — the difference is spelling only
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- żonawife
The character in the “polish tails and strokes” group
Nine signs: two nasals (ą, ę), three soft ones (ć, ś, ź — with ń), ó, ł, and their dots and tails. A tail marks a nasal sound, a stroke marks softness, a dot is history.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «żet» it is “zh (as in "measure")”, as in the word “żona”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 32 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Polish character ż read?
As “zh (as in "measure")” — it is a consonant of the Polish script. A hard zh, like the s of "measure". The digraph rz makes the same sound — the difference is spelling only. For example, in the word “żona” — wife.
What is the letter ż called?
Żet. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Polish script: it is called “żet” and reads as “zh (as in "measure")”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.