Some o’ the words in this book might not be immediately pronounceable for some readers because they have foreign origins. Heck, I needed help myself. But I like learning new words and how to say them, so I’m providing a wee guide here for a few names and such in case you’re of a like mind and want to know how to say them out loud. No one is going to confiscate your cake if you say them wrong, but you might score a piece of cake if you say them right. You know what? You should just have a piece of cake anyway. You deserve cake.
Czech
Celetná = TSELL et NAH (A street in Prague)
Králodvorská = KRAH loh DVOR skah (A street in Prague)
Petřín = PET shreen (A hill on the castle side of Prague)
Ulice = oo LEE tse (Means street, basically. Interesting fact: The word is the same in Polish but they place it in front of the name and the Czechs put it afterward. So if you were speaking of Main Street, in Polish that would be Ulice Main and in Czech it’s Main Ulice.)
Vltava = Vl TAH vah (Big ol’ river that runs through Prague)
Polish
Agnieszka = ag nee ESH ka (One of the Polish coven)
Bydgoszcz = bid GOSH-CH (City in Poland. I straight up admit to choosing it just to cause panic in my audiobook narrator. To English-speaking eyes those four consonants at the end look alarming. But they are actually two distinct digraphs that linguistically represent a fricative followed by an affricative: sz and cz. The sz is going to get you something like sh and the cz gives you ch. But when you pronounce that it’s all one syllable. Try it! GOSH-CH. Seriously fun.)
Ewelina = ev eh LEE na (One of the Polish coven. The letter w is pronounced like v in Polish.)
Miłosz = ME wash (The white horse of Świętowit. That spiffy ł is pronounced as a w in Polish. And that o is pronounced like the a in wash, so there you have it.)
Patrycja = pa TREES ya (One of the Polish coven. Basically as in Patricia but with a long e sound and no sh.)
Pole Mokotowskie = PO leh Mo ko TOV ski-eh (An expansive park in the city of Warsaw.)
Radość = Rah DOHSH-CH (Translates to joy. A neighborhood in one of Warsaw’s districts, on the east side of the Wisła River.)
Świętowit = SHVEN toe veet (That cool little ę indicates an n sound at the end of the vowel. Slavic god with four heads.)
Weles = VEH les (Spelled as Veles in most other Slavic countries but the pronunciation is nearly universal. Slavic deity of the earth, enemy of Perun.)
Wisła = Vee SWAH (River that runs right through the center of Warsaw.)
Wisława Szymborska = Vee SWAH vah Shim BOR ska (Polish Nobel Prize winner for literature. Great poetry.)
