Keep Punjabi free for every learner
Someone who understands every word their family says and can't answer back. Someone who wants to read the script for the first time at fifty. Someone with no Punjabi family at all who simply fell for the language. None of them should have to pay to learn it. They don't, and they never will. Donations are how that stays true.
- The app is free to use, and stays that way — you're not buying access
- Every donation is reinvested — new lessons, better tools, continuous development
- Independent and community-funded
- Every patron gets a badge, and the Baithak — what your support built, a page you can dedicate, and a say in what comes next
- Cancel a monthly gift any time, no questions asked
Secure checkout by Stripe — we never see your card details. Afterwards, use the same email on a free account and your patron badge attaches itself, along with the Baithak. Every donation counts, including ones made long before this existed.
Your donation helps us…
Punjabi is spoken by well over a hundred million people and taught properly to almost none of them outside Punjab. A generation understands their grandparents and can't answer them. Closing that gap takes more than goodwill — it takes better technology and better teaching than a free website has any right to have. That is what we're building, and what your money speeds up.
Continuous development
This isn't a site that got built once and left alone. It keeps growing — new lessons, new tools, new integrations, quiet fixes, whole features nobody asked for but everybody ends up using. Every donation is reinvested into that and into the channels around it: better quality, more of it, sooner.
Shaped by the people using it
Find a word that isn't how your family says it and you can propose the fix from the page you found it on. We read every suggestion, and the good ones go live for everyone. It's the fastest way this thing gets better, and the reason it sounds like the people who use it rather than a committee.
Teaching, not just word lists
Anyone can publish a vocabulary table. The grammar explained in plain English, the story behind a festival, why a word means what it means — that's the difference between a dictionary and an education, and it's slow, careful work that deserves to be paid for.
Fast and free, everywhere
A teenager in Toronto, a mother in Birmingham and a student in Lahore open the same site and get the same lessons at the same speed — on an old phone, on a poor connection, in a country nobody else optimises for. Serving that properly is infrastructure, and infrastructure has a bill.
Out into the community
A language survives because people use it out loud, together. Funding is what turns language cafés, Vaisakhi and Lohri workshops and free packs for gurdwara schools from a list into dates in a diary — and what lets us carry charities working across Punjab and the diaspora free of charge, permanently, in space other people pay for.
Independent, and staying that way
Funded by the people who use it means we answer to them. No investors to satisfy, no pressure to put a price on something that's free today, and no version of this where a language quietly becomes somebody's revenue line.
Given monthly, even a small amount is what lets us plan past next week — see what we're working towards.
What we promise in return
- The app stays free to use. Every lesson, story, word list and audio clip — free now, free later, and never taken away and sold back to you. If we ever charge for something, it will be something extra we've built on top, not a gate in front of what you already have.
- Nothing you pay for is a lesson someone else can't have. Patrons get a 🪔 on their account, and the Baithak — a room where you can see what your support built, dedicate a page to someone who taught you, read what's being worked on, and say what should come next. It is recognition, a record and a say. It is never access: not one word, clip, lesson or feature is behind it, and that is the line we won't cross.
- No ad networks and no data selling. A handful of hand-picked sponsor slots help cover costs — a name and a line of text, chosen by us, shown to everyone alike, never beside a lesson. The privacy policy is specific about this.
- Cancel whenever. A monthly gift is cancelled from the receipt in your inbox, or by emailing us. No retention call, no dark pattern.
Our goals
Some of it is software, some of it is people in a room together, and some of it is hiring people who will do this better than we can. A language survives because it gets used, not because it is well documented — so that is what we build towards.
Informal meet-ups where people practise out loud with others at the same stage — the thing every learner says they want and no app can give them. Starting where the diaspora is thickest, and free to attend.
Family sessions around the festivals people already gather for — the vocabulary, the songs and the stories behind the day, pitched so children and grandparents can sit in the same room.
Most free Punjabi material stops at greetings and numbers. The next stretch goes further — longer reading, real conversation, and the grammar that lets you build your own sentences instead of repeating ours.
A series made for the diaspora specifically — the script, the phrases and the history of Punjab, in a form you can watch with your kids.
Printable alphabet charts, workbooks and lesson plans for Sunday schools and community classes, sent out at no cost to anyone teaching Punjabi to children.
A calm, moderated space for learners to ask questions, correct each other kindly and keep each other going between lessons.
The ceiling on this project is hours, not ideas. Steady funding lifts it: a Punjabi teacher reviewing every lesson, developers building at a proper pace, someone whose actual job is running the events. Positions get posted here first.
No timelines promised. These arrive in the order the funding allows, and we'll tell you plainly on this page which ones your money actually built.
Your organisation can do more than a donation
If you run a business, a gurdwara, a school or a foundation, there's a version of this that works harder for both of us. A slot in the side rails is £49 a month and takes a form. The bigger partnerships — category exclusivity, sponsoring a lesson or a whole culture guide, funding a defined piece of work — we'd rather talk through than sell off a rate card.
And if you're a charity working in Punjab or across the diaspora, we list you for nothing at all.
- 20slots on the whole site, and no more
- 0ad networks, trackers or third-party scripts
- Neverbeside a lesson, the quiz or anyone's account
Why free matters here in particular
Punjabi sits among the most spoken languages on earth and among the worst served online. Search for a way into French or Spanish and an entire industry answers. Search for Punjabi and you get a scanned worksheet from someone's old class, a video series that stops after the alphabet, and an app where the language is a bonus track. The demand was never the problem. Nobody thought it was worth building for.
And for much of the diaspora the language skipped a generation. People who understand every word their parents say and answer in English. People who speak it fluently and can't read a line of Gurmukhi. People who are the last in the family who could have learned it properly from someone who is no longer here. That gap is usually carried quietly, with a bit of embarrassment, and looked up late at night on a phone where nobody can see.
Anyone in that position should be able to start at once and for nothing — no trial, no card, no proving they're serious before they've learned a single letter. Put a price on it and you filter out precisely the people it exists for: the ones not yet sure they're allowed to claim the language at all.
So the cost sits with whoever can carry it this month. If that's you, thank you — genuinely, it makes the difference. If it isn't, use it, enjoy it, and send it to someone who needs it. That was always the point.
Other ways to help
Money is not the only thing that keeps this going. Sharing a page with someone who would use it, telling us when a word is wrong, or simply telling people it exists are all worth a great deal. If your organisation might sponsor the work, that is on the sponsorship page; for anything else, say hello.
Is a donation tax-deductible?
No — Learn Punjabi is not a registered charity, so donations are personal support rather than charitable giving. We would rather say that plainly than imply otherwise.
Can I give in my own currency?
Yes. Pick your currency at the top of the box above — pounds, dollars, euros, Canadian or Australian dollars.
Do I need an account to donate?
No. If you'd like the patron badge, create a free account with the same email address afterwards and it attaches once you confirm the address.
How do I cancel a monthly donation?
Use the link on the Stripe receipt emailed to you, or write to hello@learnpunjabi.net and we'll stop it the same day.