Chat in English with someone who speaks Polish

With Piou, you write in English and your contact writes in Polish. With Piou Premium, each Polish message appears in English on your phone, translated on the device itself, and the original stays one tap away. For your contact to read you in Polish, they need Premium too, or you can gift it to them.

How it works between English and Polish

Piou detects the language of each message on the sender's phone and stores it exactly as written. Translation happens on the recipient's device, into the recipient's language. You read English, your contact reads Polish, and nobody has to switch anything.

The engine depends on the device:

• iPhone: Apple's built-in translation, on iOS 18 or later.
• Android: ML Kit by Google, with models downloaded to the phone.
• Web app: the open source Bergamot engine with Firefox Translations models running in the browser, or Chrome's built-in translation on a computer when available. English and Polish form a direct pair on the web.

Translated messages carry the label Translated; tap Show original to see exactly what was written. Translations never leave your device. The messages themselves are stored on Piou's servers in their original language so they can be delivered and synced.

The language packs download once, ideally over Wi-Fi. After that, translation and Face to face mode work offline.

On the free plan, Piou is a complete messenger with chats, groups, voice messages, photos and calls, but messages appear in their original language. Premium adds automatic translation, voice messages transcribed and translated, translated subtitles during calls and Face to face mode.

What an exchange looks like

Siobhan has hired Paweł, a Polish-speaking builder, to redo her bathroom. Here is roughly what each of them sees:

• Paweł writes: “Dzień dobry, Pani Siobhan! Płytki przyjadą w czwartek, więc zaczynam w piątek o 8:00. Wycena bez zmian: 2 400 euro z materiałem.” → Siobhan reads: “Good morning, Mrs. Siobhan! The tiles will arrive on Thursday, so I'm starting on Friday at 8:00. The quote is unchanged: 2,400 euros including materials.”
• Siobhan replies: “Brilliant, thanks! Friday works. Does the 2,400 include VAT?” → Paweł reads: “Genialnie, dzięki! Piątek pasuje. Czy 2400 obejmuje VAT?”

Two details are worth noticing. “Mrs. Siobhan” is how a translation often renders the polite Polish “Pani” followed by a first name: it's a sign of respect, not a mistake. And “Brilliant”, which simply means “great” in Irish and British English, can come out as “genialnie”, which sounds far more enthusiastic in Polish. When an amount matters, repeat it in digits, as Siobhan did, and confirm it in writing.

Tips for chatting with Polish speakers

• Expect “Pan” and “Pani” at first. Many Polish speakers use these formal forms with people they don't know well, including at work. Switching to first names, “przejść na ty”, is often proposed explicitly. Let your contact suggest it, or ask.
• Names change shape. Polish names are declined, so Kasia also appears as Kasi, Kasię or Kasiu, and Paweł as Pawła or Pawle. Your own name may be declined too. Diminutives are common: Katarzyna becomes Kasia, Małgorzata becomes Gosia, Aleksander becomes Olek.
• Name days matter to many families. Many Poles, especially older relatives, celebrate imieniny, the day of the saint whose name they bear. A short wish is a kind gesture.
• A direct message isn't a cold one. Polish requests often use a plain imperative, or “proszę” followed by a verb, so a translated message can read more abrupt than intended. Judge the tone by the whole conversation.
• Read numbers the Polish way. Dates come day first, so 03.04 is April 3. Times are usually written in 24-hour format, decimals use a comma, and a space separates thousands: 2 400 means 2,400.

Where translation can stumble

• Gender. Polish verbs change with the speaker's gender: “zrobiłem” for a man, “zrobiłam” for a woman. English “I did it” gives no clue, so the translation guesses and may pick the masculine form.
• Formal address. “Pan” and “Pani” may come out as “sir”, “madam”, “Mr.” or nothing at all, and your “you” may be rendered informally.
• Missing Polish letters. Typed without accents, “pączki” becomes “paczki” and the doughnuts turn into parcels.
• Names that are words. Róża means “rose” and Jagoda means “berry”, and a translation may treat them as words.
• Mixed language. Messages blending Polish and English, such as “mam meeting o 10”, can confuse language detection. Idioms, irony, typos and abbreviations can also come out wrong.

Getting started

1. Install Piou on iPhone (iOS 18 or later) or Android (8.0 or later), or use the web app at app.piou.chat.
2. Choose English as your language and let the languages download, ideally over Wi-Fi.
3. Invite your contact with a link, a QR code or from your address book.
4. Start the 7-day free trial to turn on translation. A card is required, nothing is charged for 7 days, and the subscription then starts automatically at the price shown unless you cancel before the trial ends.
5. Use Gift Piou to someone if you want your contact to read you in Polish, and manage the gift later in Settings → Premium.