Polish Reading Passages Made for Tutors

Create engaging Polish texts for your students from A0 to B2.

Using graded Polish readers helps your students encounter vocabulary and grammar in a clear context. With Stichos, you can explore a live reading passage on this page and generate fresh A0 and A1 texts right away. When Educator Studio launches, you will be able to turn custom word lists and topics into level-matched reading materials for all your classes.

Niedziela na targu

Jest ciepła niedziela.

It is a warm Sunday.

Rachela idzie na duży targ w Krakowie.

Rachela goes to a big market in Kraków.

Słońce świeci wysoko na niebie.

The sun shines high in the sky.

Na targu jest bardzo wesoło.

It is very cheerful at the market.

Rachela ogląda ładne i świeże warzywa.

Rachela looks at nice and fresh vegetables.

Widzi zielone ogórki i pachnące pomidory.

She sees green cucumbers and fragrant tomatoes.

Pachnące warzywa wyglądają pięknie.

The fragrant vegetables look beautiful.

Rachela widzi też czerwoną paprykę.

Rachela also sees a red pepper.

Chce kupić coś smacznego.

She wants to buy something tasty.

Oto jest duży stół.

Here is a large table.

Na stole leżą słodkie jabłka.

Sweet apples lie on the table.

Rachela wybiera jabłka i biały ser.

Rachela chooses apples and white cheese.

Biały ser pachnie bardzo dobrze.

The white cheese smells very good.

Rachela mówi: Poproszę ten ser.

Rachela says: I would like this cheese, please.

Sprzedawca uśmiecha się miło.

The seller smiles kindly.

Rachela szybko płaci za zakupy.

Rachela quickly pays for the groceries.

Bierze ciężką torbę w dłoń.

She takes the heavy bag in her hand.

Nagle mały kot dotyka torby.

Suddenly a small cat touches the bag.

Kot wącha świeży ser.

The cat sniffs the fresh cheese.

Rachela śmieje się głośno.

Rachela laughs aloud.

Mówi do kota miłe słowo.

She speaks a kind word to the cat.

Macha do niego ręką.

She waves her hand at him.

Zadowolona Rachela wraca do domu.

Content, Rachela returns home.

Będzie jeść smaczny ser.

She will eat the tasty cheese.

Key Facts About the Polish Language

Speakers

About 40 million people speak Polish as a first language and about 2.1 million as a second language (2021).1

Did you know?

Polish keeps three similar-sounding series of hissing sounds apart: sz and cz, the softer ś and ć, and plain s and c.1

The main challenge

Seven grammatical cases, and a plural that treats groups of men differently from everything else: mężczyźni biegali (the men ran) but kobiety biegały (the women ran) and psy biegały (the dogs ran).2

CEFR exams

Where students struggle

  • The genitive after a negated verb: the object changes case when the verb is negated, as in nie ma kota (there isn't a cat).2

Teaching notes

  • Introduce polite address early: the polite way to say "you" in Polish is pan (sir, Mr) or pani (madam, Mrs) with a third-person verb.2

Sources

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_language
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar

About the Polish language

Language familyIndo-European → Slavic → West Slavic (Lechitic)1
SpeakersAbout 40 million native speakers (2021), most of them in Poland, plus about 2.1 million second-language speakers.1
Primary scriptLatin script: the 32-letter Polish alphabet, nine of whose letters carry diacritics (ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż).2
Word order & typologySubject–verb–object is the dominant order, but word order is relatively free because endings mark each word’s role. Synthetic and highly inflected, with seven grammatical cases and three main genders.3
Official statusOfficial language of Poland and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union (since 2004); a recognised minority language in several countries, including Lithuania, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.1,4
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_language
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_alphabet
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar
  4. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/languages_en

Polish reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR & Certyfikat Polski)

Stichos levelApproximate framework equivalentReader profile
A0Pre-A1Early Beginner
A1CEFR A1Beginner
A2CEFR A2Elementary
B1CEFR B1Intermediate
B2CEFR B2Upper Intermediate

The framework column uses CEFR levels only. Poland’s state certificate exams in Polish as a foreign language (Certyfikat Polski) are set at the same levels, A1 to C2, but Stichos levels describe reading difficulty and are not exam preparation.

Reference corpora

Word-frequency research on Polish draws on the national reference corpus.1

  • National Corpus of Polish: The Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiego (NKJP) holds more than 1.5 billion words of classic literature, daily and specialist press, recorded conversations and internet texts. It was built between 2007 and 2012 by two institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the publisher PWN and the University of Łódź.1
  • Register: Stichos writes standard, dialect-neutral Polish at every level and avoids archaic words, regionalisms and slang.
  1. https://nkjp.pl/

Readability design principles

Polish readability measures raise the bar for a “hard” word: because Polish words are longer on average, they count words of four or more syllables as difficult, where English formulas count three.1

  • Pisarek’s formula: Walery Pisarek (1969, Zeszyty Prasoznawcze) rated text difficulty from average sentence length and the share of words with four or more syllables. Charzyńska and Dębowski (2015) tested it with 1,309 readers on 15 texts and found it relatively accurate.1
  • Jasnopis: Developed by SWPS University and the Institute of Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences under Włodzimierz Gruszczyński, Jasnopis rates Polish texts on a scale of 1 to 7, from texts any reader understands to texts for specialists, and flags long sentences and difficult words.2
  • Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits. A0 sentences have at most five words and no conjunctions; connectives then open in a fixed order, from i at A1 to a, ale and bo at A2 and ponieważ, chociaż and natomiast at B1.
  1. https://journals.ispan.edu.pl/index.php/cs-ec/en/article/view/cs.2015.010
  2. https://english.swps.pl/science-and-research/review-our-research-output/projects-and-implementations/33742-jasnopis-app-that-rates-the-clarity-of-official-documents

Script & grammar scaffolding

  • Tenses and aspect: A0 uses only the present tense (czas teraźniejszy). A1 adds the compound future with być, as in będę czytać. The past tense (czas przeszły), the simple future of perfective verbs (czas przyszły prosty) and basic aspect contrasts arrive at A2, and the full use of both aspects at B1.
  • Moods and participles: The conditional (tryb przypuszczający), the basic passive and simple participles start at B1; the full range of active and passive participles (imiesłowy) is open from B2.
  • Requests: At A0 a request is the formula Poproszę plus a noun (Poproszę kawę), and imperatives appear only in fixed phrases such as Proszę. A1 adds five informal imperatives: patrz, chodź, weź, poczekaj and usiądź.
  • Forms of address: Friends and family use ty; strangers are addressed as Pan or Pani with a third-person verb. Subject pronouns are dropped when the verb ending already shows the subject.

Related academic & framework resources

Frequently Asked Questions

What is available to test on this page right now?
You can try a live A0 or A1 text directly in your browser without making an account. The live preview includes tap-to-translate words and line-by-line translations. You can also join the Reading List to receive 3 free sample stories as a downloadable PDF.
Which Polish proficiency levels will be available when Educator Studio launches?
At launch, Educator Studio will cover every level from A0 through B2. You will be able to generate texts appropriate for complete beginners as well as upper-intermediate Polish learners.
How will I share stories with my Polish students at launch?
At launch, you will be able to share any text you generate by sending your students a web link. You can create as many share links as you need without any restrictions.
Do my students need to create an account to read shared texts?
No, your students will open shared links directly in their web browsers without making an account. They can choose to create a free account if they want to save their stories and vocabulary, but it is never required.
How do audio pronunciations and narrations work for Polish?
At launch, students can tap a word in a shared text to hear a standard computer voice pronounce it. With the optional Premium Audio add-on, you gain natural-sounding voices for individual words, full story narration with distinct voices for dialogue characters, and MP3 audio exports for you and your students.
Can I print reading materials for offline classroom use?
Yes. At launch, Educator Studio will print reading sheets as PDFs complete with line-by-line translations and a vocabulary glossary.
How accurate are the generated Polish texts and grammar rules?
Texts are written by AI and automatically checked against grammar and vocabulary rules for the chosen level. Because this check is automated rather than a human editor, minor errors can occasionally happen, so you should review every story before passing it to your students.
How does Stichos handle difficult features of Polish grammar like verb negation?
Polish grammar introduces rules such as changing a direct object to the genitive case after a negated verb, like saying nie ma kota. At launch, Educator Studio will let you toggle specific tenses and edit any sentence before sharing, helping you introduce complex features alongside everyday expressions like polite address using pan or pani.

Learning Polish yourself? Try the learner reader →

Free Language Reading Samples for Tutors · Stichos