Linguistics & Pronunciation

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Sz is the thirty-second letter of the Hungarian alphabet. It is pronounced (using English pronunciation with letter romanization) "ess" in the alphabet, but just "s" when spoken in a word. Using the IPA phoneme, it can be written as /s/.

Usage

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It is only used and pronounced in this way in Hungarian. One has to remember that in Hungarian, even if two characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact. Thus, names like Liszt should, in IPA, be pronounced ^*.

Interestingly, sz in Polish produces the sound (and s produces [s), while in Hungarian it is produced by the letter s.

Examples

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These examples are Hungarian words that use the letter sz, with the English pronunciation with letter romanization following.

• szabó = tailor
• szép = beautiful
• szikla = rock
• szőke = blonde
• szülő = parent

Hungarian language