Online Polish Dictionaries

by Maria Rudneva

Greetings to all who love Polish language!

Today I would like to share with you a collection of different Polish dictionaries. They are mostly Polish-Polish dictionaries, but there is one multi-dictionary as well. And the last link is to make the collection more colourful and, hopefully, to cheer you up.

Ling.pl is, perhaps, the most popular Polish language dictionary. The biggest advantage of ling.pl is English language dictionaries. Here you can find a wide range of English-Polish, Polish-English and English-English dictionaries. As that might not be enough for a Polish studies student, there are more dictionaries available: Polish-German and German-Polish, Polish-Spanish and Spanish-Polish, Polish-French and French-Polish and, finally, Polish-Russian and Russian-Polish ones. When you type the word into the search box, you get a list of all articles from all the dictionaries that translate the required word. It is quite convenient because even if some word is not included in the Russian/German/Spanish/English/French dictionary, you might still find it in some other dictionary, so this way or other you will get a translation. There is the paid version of the portal as well, which gives you an access to even more dictionaries and removes ads. You can also download free apps for Android and IOS.

sjp.pwn.pl is a portal that every Polish studies enthusiast will use sooner or later. PWN (Polskie wydawnictwo naukowe), Polish scientific Publishers, publishes the most important Polish dictionaries and encyclopaedias. Sjp.pwn.pl is an online version of Polish explanatory dictionary (Słownik języka polskiego), and it also features The Corpus of Polish language (korpus językowy), a page with advice on writing (poradnia językowa), a section with funny facts about the words (ciekawostki), and a writing guide (zasady pisowni).

Corpus of Polish language is extremely useful for a foreigner. If you have any doubts on how to use this or that word in a better way, Corpus is what you need. Type the words you're interested in into the search box, and you will get quite a long list of quotes from fiction, publicistic writing and more where those words of yours are used. It means that you can understand in what context, with which words and prepositions those words are usually used. 

Poradnia językowa is a question-and-answer section, written in a witty way. At least half of the questions is answered by professor Mirosław Bańko who is the author of The Other Polish Explanatory Dictionary (Inny słownik języka polskiego). Professor Bańko is a Polish language expert and a man with a great sense of humour, so his answers are useful even if you want just to relax a bit. All the questions are classified according to their topic.
Page Ciekawostki is also good for entertainment: there you can find amusing facts about Polish language.

As we have mentioned The Corpus of Polish Language, we should tell you about National Corpus of Polish as well. Two main advantages of this portal are the opportunity to use English interface and two search engines.

Wielki słownik języka polskiego is also a splendid online explanatory dictionary of Polish language. If a certain word has several meanings, you will be asked which of them are you interested in, and only after that the corresponding part of the article will be opened. It's up to you to decide whether this system is handy or not, but all in all I like this site and find it nice to work with.

Now let us turn to the more specific dictionaries. For example, PWN, the publishing house that was already mentioned in this post, has uploaded scans of Witold Doroszewski's dictionary. The most trustworthy Polish dictionary of XX century can now be accessed from all quarters of the earth: Słownik języka polskiego opracowany pod kierunkiem prof. Doroszewskiego.

Youth slang dictionary is also specific, but certainly useful in daily life. New words and examples are constantly added to help you keep up on contemporary language.

Dictionary of Polish abbreviations and Dictionary of synonyms in Polish language are also great for everyday life.

If you decide to plunge into the world of Polish poetry, you will sooner or later turn to the works of Cyprian Norwid. Dictionary of Cyprian Norwid's language will make your reading easier and more interesting. 

And when you feel like it's time to check your knowledge of Polish language, try to play Słowo do słowa! You will be given words and phrases, and the task is to compose different word structures. You'll never get tired of that. ;)

Of course, there are loads of other interesting dictionaries on the Internet, but in my opinion, this collection of dictionaries is a must for every person who learns Polish.

Have a nice day!