The reading library

People learn languages by reading them. Start on the first shelf.

People learn languages by reading them

Start where you actually are

Real Punjabi, shelved by how much help you'll want beside you. Every reading gives the original in both scripts, a translation, and vocabulary you can tap. Start on the first shelf; the library grows with every update.

First readings

single words & sentences

Word of the day One word daily, fully unpacked — the gentlest possible reading habit. 1 min · daily Word studies — ਵਤਨ & ਇਸ਼ਕ Two words taken apart at full depth: homeland, and love with consequences. 8 min · both scripts Proverbs in the archive Akhāṇ — field-tested wisdom one sentence long. Search the word archive and read the example sentences aloud. 2 min each

Growing confidence

verses with help alongside

Bulleh Shah — Bullā kī jāṇā The kafi that refuses every label, stanza by stanza: original, transliteration, literal and natural translation, and the Sufi context under each verse. 15 min · lyric explorer The same words, twice Read one passage in both scripts side by side — the fastest bridge exercise there is. 10 min · both scripts

Full texts

the literature itself

Heer — Waris Shah, 1766 · the Parallel Reader The opening of Punjab's greatest qissa in an annotated, tap-every-word edition. Original and English side by side; save the words you don't know. 20 min · interactive Tere Ishq Nachaya — Bulleh Shah · the Parallel Reader The great Sufi kafi of love as a dance the lover cannot refuse, in the same annotated, tap-every-word edition — Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi beside the English. 8 min · interactive Sohni Mahiwal · Mirza Sahiban · Sassi Punnun The other great romances, in the same annotated edition — the Parallel Reader is built to hold them all. in preparation Folk tales & children's stories Prose shelves for gentler long-form reading — including Dulla Bhatti, told for young readers. in preparation

Before the shelf, or alongside it

If a line stops you

Nothing here needs to be read in order, and nothing here expects you to already be fluent. Two doors back, for whenever a page is heavier than you wanted it to be.

The script

Learn Gurmukhi

If the letters themselves are the obstacle, start there instead. Most readers are sounding out real words inside a week.

Start from the first letter The machinery

Grammar, gently

Six short guides. Why the verb waits until the end, why ਦਾ keeps changing shape, and where the tones hide.

How sentences are built The tool

The Parallel Reader

Original and translation side by side, every word tappable, and a vocabulary list that remembers what you saved.

Open the Reader

These shelves grade by how much help you will want beside you. If you would rather meet the works themselves, who wrote them, in which language and in which script, that shelf is Literature, over in Culture.