[Intermernet]

Odd, I don't speak Polish, but my mom and grandparents did. Even that small exposure was enough for me to get that pronunciation 100% correct. I wonder what the minimum exposure to any given language is to allow someone to correctly guess pronunciation. I speak a little German and French but regularly get the pronunciation incorrect, but I didn’t grow up around native German and French speakers.

[YjSe2GMQ]

Polish pronunciation is actually incredibly easy, there's a direct mapping (a mathematical function) from a simple partition of letters to phonems. Unlike in English, where we have weirdnesses like "vehicle" or "colonel". There's a price to pay for quick and massive import of words, lack of centralized language development coordination body and conquering the global stage of accents, I reckon.

Example for the town: Mszczonów -> Mshchonooff (Americanized).

[Grustaf]

It’s not easy, it’s very very hard, even for other slavs, but it’s very predictable based on spelling.

[chungleong]

I blame the Poles for the muteness of their non-slav neighbors.

[Grustaf]

Ah now I finally got it! Nemtsy, makes sense.

[idlewords]

I bet you six meters of kiełbasa that you did not get that pronunciation 100% correct.

[Intermernet]

I didn't think I would, but I did!

[Arbalest]

It helps a lot to have been exposed to it around 6-12 months. That's apparently when pronunciation subtlety is learnt.

[Intermernet]

Makes sense. My grandmother would sing polish nursery rhymes to me at that age.