"Zwierzęta"
Translation:The animals
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2637
I believe they mean the "Tips & Notes" section you see when you scroll down from the list of lessons in each section on the web version. This topic does not have any because the course contributors haven't gotten to it yet. I imagine they will eventually add these and we should see some basic rules for how plurals are formed.
In this particular case it's indeed pronounced as 'en' (without nasality), but the pronunciation generally depends on what comes after it.
According to standard phonetics ę is pronounced as:
- a nasal [ɛ̃] sound when followed by the letters ch, f, h, rz, s, sz, ś, w, z, ź or ż, as in:
https://pl.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Plik:Pl-w%C4%99%C5%BCe.ogg
- an [ɛm] sound when followed by the letters b and p, as in:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Pl-g%C5%82%C4%99boki.ogg
- an [ɛn] sound when followed by the letters c, cz, d, dz, dż or t, as in:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Pl-w%C4%99drowa%C4%87.ogg
- an [ɛɲ] sound when followed by the letters ć or dź, as in:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Pl-pi%C4%99%C4%87.ogg
- an [ɛŋ] sound when followed by the letters g or k, as in:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Pl-wi%C4%99kszy.ogg
- as a denasalised vowel [ɛ] before ł and l, as in:
https://pl.forvo.com/word/by%C5%82o%2C_min%C4%99%C5%82o./#pl
The word-final pronunciation of 'ę' is a topic on its own:
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/25163389
Note, that the realisation of ę and ą might vary depending on the region. Also, there is the phenomenon of "careful pronunciation", when natives don't denasalise [ɛ̃] to [ɛ] in those previously mentioned examples. I personally regard such a pronunciation as hypercorrect (wrong), however, the other moderators on this course will probably tell you that it still sounds acceptable.
From my quick lookup on IPA, are these two examples below without nasality?
• an [ɛm] sound when followed by the letters b and p
• an [ɛn] sound when followed by the letters c, cz, d, dz, dż or t
And do these two below have nasality?
• an [ɛɲ] sound when followed by the letters ć or dź
• an [ɛŋ] sound when followed by the letters g or k