Learn Polish for English speakers
Polish stories generated at your level, with instant English translation on every word. Built for the long road from "completely lost" to fluent.
Free to start · no card · your first story in 10 seconds
What English speakers already know
Polish shares the Latin alphabet with English, so reading is physically familiar from day one. About 5% of Polish vocabulary is recognizable from international and Latin roots (komputer, telefon, restauracja, problem). That's the good news — but the grammar is a different planet, so you'll lean on context and exposure more than on cognates.
The friction points
- Seven grammatical cases mean nouns, adjectives, and pronouns change form depending on their role in the sentence.
- Three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and verb aspect (perfective vs imperfective) need to become reflexes, not rules to recall.
- Consonant clusters that look unpronounceable (szczęście, wstrząs, źdźbło) become natural with enough reading exposure.
- Word order is flexible — same sentence, six valid orderings — which textbook drills can't teach you. Reading can.
False friends to know first
Words that look familiar but mean something else. The first ones to learn so you don't embarrass yourself.
What Polish looks like in Newt
Generated by Newt at the level you set. Tap any word for an instant English translation, definition, and pronunciation — no leaving the page.
Lubię pić kawę rano, zanim zaczynam pracę.
I like to drink coffee in the morning, before I start work.
Kawa, pić, rano — first 200 high-frequency words cover most casual sentences.
Czy mogłabyś powiedzieć mi, gdzie jest najbliższa apteka?
Could you tell me where the nearest pharmacy is?
Apteka, najbliższa, mogłabyś — three forms in one sentence; this is what cases look like in practice.
Why English speakers pick up Polish
Tens of thousands of English speakers in Poland — engineers in Kraków and Wrocław, expats in Warsaw, partners of Poles abroad — get to A2 in classes and then plateau. The bottleneck is almost always volume of input, not more grammar drills. Reading short, leveled stories closes that gap.
Read → tap → save → repeat
- Tell Newt what you care aboutPick a topic (cycling, history, coffee, indie games — anything). Newt writes you a short Polish story around it at your level.
- Tap any word for instant translationTap a word — Newt shows the English translation, definition, and pronunciation in a popup. No page-switching.
- Save the ones you don't know yetSaved words land in your vocabulary list with the sentence you met them in — context comes free.
- Newt reuses them in your next storyEach new story tries to fold in 2-3 words you recently saved, so you meet them again in fresh context. That's how vocabulary actually sticks.
- Spaced repetition catches what slippedA short daily review session brings back words the algorithm thinks you're about to forget. Same idea as Anki, except you never had to build the deck.
Common questions
How is this different from Duolingo for Polish?
Duolingo teaches isolated phrases in a fixed curriculum. Newt generates short stories from topics you actually care about, at your current level, with every word tappable for an instant English translation. Words you save come back automatically in future stories — that's the part that makes vocabulary stick.
How is this different from asking ChatGPT to write me a Polish text?
ChatGPT can write you a story, but it forgets everything between sessions. It doesn't know which words you already learned, doesn't space them out for review, and doesn't quietly weave your saved words into the next story. Newt does all of that — it's a closed loop, not a one-shot prompt.
What level of Polish do I need to start?
Any. Newt supports A1 (complete beginner) through C1 (advanced). At A1 you'll get short, very simple texts with high-frequency vocabulary; at B2+ you'll get nuanced articles and stories. The system calibrates as you tap and save words.
Is it free?
Yes — there's a free plan with 3 fresh AI texts every day, no card required to sign up. Premium lifts the daily cap and lets you study multiple languages at once; you can upgrade anytime.
How long until I can read a real book in Polish?
Realistic timeline for English speakers: 4-8 months of consistent daily reading (15-30 min) to read a young-adult novel comfortably, 12+ months to read literary fiction. The single biggest predictor is hours of input — Newt's job is to make those hours easy to start.
Start reading Polish tonight
Pick a topic, your first story lands in 10 seconds. Free to start, no card.