Sklepy cynamonowe
Bruno Schulz · 1934
Prose like nobody else's. Schulz's Polish is dense, baroque, full of metaphors. Hard, but unforgettable.
Polish · Polski
Read Polish books with in-context translation.
Open Mickiewicz, Lem or your own EPUB. Tap any word and get the meaning it has in that sentence - seven cases and verb aspect included - with a short note on why.
Pan Tadeusz · Księga pierwsza
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie. Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.
po tobieSave
for you (I miss you)
Old form - today it’s “tęsknię za tobą”
SentenceWhy?Grammar
Why the original
Why read Polish books in the original
Polish has seven cases, three genders, and clusters of consonants that look impossible on the page. The language has a reputation for being hard. It mostly is. It's also worth it.
Bruno Schulz writes prose unlike anyone else. Stanisław Lem invented half of modern science fiction. Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel for novels that could only have been written in Polish. The Polish 20th century is one of the great literary centuries.
For Slavic-language speakers, Polish is recognisable; for Romance and Germanic speakers, it's a longer climb. Either way, the alphabet is Latin and the spelling is regular - if you know the rules, you know how to pronounce it.
Start here
Six Polish books worth your time
Import any DRM-free EPUB of these, or start with a free classic from the app’s library.
Solaris
Stanisław Lem · 1961
Lem's most famous novel. The Polish is more accessible than Schulz, the ideas are some of the strangest in 20th century science fiction.
Bieguni
Olga Tokarczuk · 2007
A novel made of fragments about travel and the body. Won the International Booker. Tokarczuk's Polish is contemporary and inviting.
Pan Tadeusz
Adam Mickiewicz · 1834
The Polish national epic, in verse. Long, beloved, and much closer to modern Polish than people expect.
Quo vadis
Henryk Sienkiewicz · 1896
Historical novel set in Nero's Rome. Won Sienkiewicz the Nobel. The Polish is 19th century but readable.
Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych
Olga Tokarczuk · 2009
Murder mystery told by a William Blake fan in a remote Polish village. Modern, funny, dark.
What a dictionary misses
Polish you’ll meet in books - explained in place.
nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpynot my problem
Literally “not my circus, not my monkeys” - a shrug, not a zoo.
owijać w bawełnęto beat around the bush
Word by word “to wrap in cotton”; in a sentence it means avoiding the point.
mieć muchy w nosieto be in a huff
“To have flies in one’s nose” - someone sulking, not an insect problem.
By level
How to read Polish at your level.
A2
Short and familiar
Start with short stories and children’s classics. Tap endings freely - the case tells you who does what. Save only the words you meet twice.
B1
Read for the story
Try Lem’s short fiction or a modern novel with dialogue. Use “Why?” on aspect pairs like robić/zrobić, and review five minutes a day.
B2+
Go for the classics
Sienkiewicz, Schulz, Tokarczuk, then Pan Tadeusz. Turn to grammar notes for old forms and export your deck to Anki.
In the app
How LinguaRead works with Polish
Drop in any Polish EPUB. Tap a word for the meaning, the case, the aspect, the gender. Tap again to see what's happening grammatically in this exact sentence.
Polish nouns change form depending on case (seven of them) and the case depends on what role the word plays. None of that maps neatly to English. Reading shows you how it works in practice, which is how you start to internalise it.
Polish FAQ
Before you start.
Will it help with the seven cases?
Tap a word and ask for grammar: you get its case and why the sentence needs it - after a preposition, as an object, in a negation - on the line you are reading.
What about perfective and imperfective verbs?
Explanations point out the aspect and what it changes here - a finished action or an ongoing one - so pairs like pisać/napisać start to feel natural.
Is Pan Tadeusz too hard for a learner?
It’s verse from 1834, so expect old forms and rare words. It works best from B2; before that, start with modern prose and come back to it.
Can I import Polish EPUBs from other stores?
Any DRM-free EPUB works - from Wolne Lektury, your own files or stores that sell without DRM. Books locked to another app’s DRM can’t be opened.
Your first Polish book, tonight.
Free to try on iPhone and iPad.
