Polish live captions and productivity tool for communicating with deaf & hoh
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
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Everything you need to follow Polish communicating with deaf & hoh
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Polish speakers.
You speak. They read.
- Your words appear on their screen word by word
- No sign language required from you
- Works at home, at work, anywhere
- Any accent, any pace
When language is also a barrier
- You speak your language, they read in theirs
- Translates in real time as you speak
- 60+ languages, no setup
- Handles mid-sentence switches
Save the conversation for them
- Record and transcribe any exchange
- They can review everything at their own pace
- Organised by speaker
- Any length, any format
Make sure nothing important was missed
- Key points extracted from any transcript
- Useful after appointments, meetings, or important conversations
- Organised into clear sections
- Works on any saved recording
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
Polish family meals — in Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, or a family home abroad — are long and lively, with hearing family members speaking naturally at full conversational pace, mixing formal Polish and the casual, fast variety of everyday life. Captio AI captions what they say so a deaf or hard of hearing family member follows without asking anyone to repeat.
Polish workplaces move between formal Polish for official exchanges and fast casual Polish in the corridor. A hearing colleague speaks in whichever register fits the moment. Captio AI captions everything so a deaf or hard of hearing colleague follows desk conversations, quick questions, and team exchanges without missing a word.
When your partner is deaf or hard of hearing and Polish is the language you speak at home. You talk naturally — casual Polish, the way you always do at home. Captio AI puts every word on their screen as you say it so nothing is lost between you.
Everyday home life in a Polish household — calling from another room, talking over the evening news, quick exchanges in the kitchen. Captio AI covers the continuous thread of home conversation that a deaf or hard of hearing family member might otherwise guess at.
When a deaf or hard of hearing person meets a new hearing Polish speaker — at a family gathering, a community event, or through a mutual friend. Set up Captio AI and the conversation begins naturally, without anyone needing to adjust how they speak.
Group settings — a family Christmas Eve (Wigilia), a large multi-generation gathering, or a mixed social event — where some people are deaf or hard of hearing and some are not. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking so every person at the table is fully part of the conversation.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
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Download on theApp Store
You talk. They follow. No adjustment needed.
You speak naturally
No slowing down, no special phrasing, no training required. Captio AI handles everything — you just talk the way you always do.
They read as you speak
Your words appear on their screen word by word while you are still talking. Not a summary after — the full sentence, in real time.
Works wherever you both are
Living rooms, offices, restaurants, social gatherings. No venue setup, no special conditions. Captio AI works anywhere you have a conversation.
No sign language from either side
You do not need to learn anything new. Neither do they. Captio AI bridges the gap without requiring any change to how either of you communicates.
Works with how you actually speak
Fast, accented, casual. Captio AI handles real speech — not just slow, clear dictation. You do not need to perform clarity for it to work.
Private by default
Your conversations are never recorded, stored, or shared. Audio is processed in real time and discarded immediately — nothing is kept.
Why Polish is hard to understand
Consonant clusters up to 4
- Polish word-initial clusters are among the densest in European languages
- Polish allows word-initial consonant clusters of up to four consonants — 'wstrząs' (shock), 'szczegół' (detail), 'źdźbło' (blade of grass). Before the first vowel opens the mouth, the lips move through a rapid succession of articulatory positions. For a deaf lip-reader, the entire initial cluster is a visual blur — the consonant information that begins the word is almost entirely lost.
12-sibilant inventory
- Polish has twelve sibilant consonants — all look almost the same at the lips
- Polish distinguishes three series of sibilants: dental/alveolar (/s/, /z/, /ts/, /dz/), postalveolar (/ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/), and palatal (/ɕ/, /ʑ/, /tɕ/, /dʑ/). All twelve are produced with the tongue in slightly different positions behind the lips — producing almost no visible difference. A deaf lip-reader following a hearing family member's natural Polish faces an unusually high degree of sibilant ambiguity compared to most European languages.
Nasal vowel contrast
- Polish nasal vowels ą and ę change word meaning — invisible at the lips
- Polish has two phonemic nasal vowels /ą/ and /ę/ that contrast with oral vowels throughout the vocabulary. Nasal resonance is produced internally — the mouth shape alone does not signal whether a vowel is nasal or oral. For a deaf lip-reader, 'mąż' (husband) and a word spelled differently look identical at the lips.
Silesian and regional dialect variation
- Silesian Polish uses different vowel distinctions from Warsaw standard
- Polish regional dialects — Silesian, Masovian, Greater Polish, Kashubian — carry different vowel qualities and some distinct phonological features. Silesian preserves a vowel distinction not present in Warsaw standard. A deaf person who lip-reads standard Polish finds that a hearing family member from Silesia or the Kashubian coast uses different mouth shapes for some sounds.
Fast casual cluster reduction
- Fast Polish speech simplifies the same clusters that already make it hard to lip-read
- In fast conversational Polish, consonant clusters reduce and some syllables drop — but into patterns that are unpredictable and don't match the full-form lip shapes a deaf person may have learned. The clusters that are already the hardest part of Polish to lip-read become something different at speed, not easier to read.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss in Poland: rising with age, improving policy
A national newborn hearing screening programme in Poland running from 2002 to 2011 identified 2.97 per 1,000 children with hearing impairment — 5,443 affected children among over 3.5 million screened (PMC12027484). Among adults, age-related hearing loss rises steeply: from 15.4% in people in their 60s to 58.2% in older age groups (PMC11985806). Hearing loss is significantly more common in Polish men (22.3%), linked to occupational noise exposure across Poland's industrial and agricultural sectors. The overall picture is one of a common, age-progressive condition that affects a large share of the older population.
Poland has Polish Sign Language (Polski Język Migowy, PJM) with an estimated 50,000–100,000 users, and PJM received legal recognition through the Sign Language Act of 2011. The act also established a right to a sign language interpreter for public service interactions. However, like in most European countries, this right covers formal and official settings — not family meals, workplaces, or social gatherings. For a deaf or hard of hearing person living with hearing relatives, the evening meal and the morning exchange happen on the hearing person's terms.
Research on hearing aid uptake in Poland shows that patients are seeking aids at earlier stages of hearing loss than they were 25 years ago, and women in particular are beginning to use hearing aids more frequently (PMC10488362). These are positive shifts in healthcare behaviour — but they address the symptom (hearing loss) without addressing the communication gap in everyday life. A hearing aid helps in quiet, face-to-face settings; it does not solve the problem of a fast multi-person Polish family conversation at Wigilia. Captio AI captions natural Polish speech in real time, at a family table in Kraków or a home in Gdańsk, so a deaf family member reads exactly what their hearing relatives are saying.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreWhat you hear stays with you.
Gone the moment it ends
Captio AI processes your audio in real time and discards it immediately. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is kept.
Not a product
Your conversations are not something Captio AI sells, shares, or monetizes — to anyone, for any reason.
Not used to train anything
What you say in a doctor's appointment or a job interview never ends up in a training dataset. Not ours. Not anyone else's.
Private by default
Download on theApp StoreCaptio AI supports 60+ languages
People love Captio AI
"Warsaw Polish at home speed is nothing like formal Polish — clusters everywhere, syllables dropped. Captio AI reads what my husband actually says, at his natural pace. I follow our evenings at home instead of asking him to slow down."
"Silesian Polish has different vowels and my family speaks it fast at family meals. Captio AI reads their dialect correctly and I follow the Wigilia table for the first time without watching everyone else."
"Professional Polish is dense with long words and clusters. I was catching the topic but not the details. Captio AI captions what my colleagues say in real time and I contribute to conversations instead of guessing."
"My grandchildren speak very fast and colloquially. I missed most of it. Captio AI reads their speech as they talk and I understand what they are saying without asking them to repeat or slow down for me."
"Warsaw Polish at home speed is nothing like formal Polish — clusters everywhere, syllables dropped. Captio AI reads what my husband actually says, at his natural pace. I follow our evenings at home instead of asking him to slow down."
"Silesian Polish has different vowels and my family speaks it fast at family meals. Captio AI reads their dialect correctly and I follow the Wigilia table for the first time without watching everyone else."
"Professional Polish is dense with long words and clusters. I was catching the topic but not the details. Captio AI captions what my colleagues say in real time and I contribute to conversations instead of guessing."
"My grandchildren speak very fast and colloquially. I missed most of it. Captio AI reads their speech as they talk and I understand what they are saying without asking them to repeat or slow down for me."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Make every conversation work — for both sides in Polish.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store