diff --git a/src/runtime/java/jpgf.c b/src/runtime/java/jpgf.c
index f1396e526..52642533c 100644
--- a/src/runtime/java/jpgf.c
+++ b/src/runtime/java/jpgf.c
@@ -1539,6 +1539,34 @@ Java_org_grammaticalframework_pgf_Type_getHypos(JNIEnv* env, jobject self)
 	return jhypos;
 }
 
+JNIEXPORT jobject JNICALL 
+Java_org_grammaticalframework_pgf_Type_readType(JNIEnv* env, jclass clazz, jstring s)
+{
+	GuPool* pool = gu_new_pool();
+
+	GuPool* tmp_pool = gu_local_pool();
+	GuString buf = j2gu_string(env, s, tmp_pool);
+	GuIn* in = gu_data_in((uint8_t*) buf, strlen(buf), tmp_pool);
+	GuExn* err = gu_exn(tmp_pool);
+
+	PgfType* ty = pgf_read_type(in, pool, err);
+	if (!gu_ok(err)) {
+		throw_string_exception(env, "org/grammaticalframework/pgf/PGFError", "The type cannot be parsed");
+		gu_pool_free(tmp_pool);
+		gu_pool_free(pool);
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	gu_pool_free(tmp_pool);
+
+	jclass pool_class = (*env)->FindClass(env, "org/grammaticalframework/pgf/Pool");
+	jmethodID pool_constrId = (*env)->GetMethodID(env, pool_class, "<init>", "(J)V");
+	jobject jpool = (*env)->NewObject(env, pool_class, pool_constrId, p2l(pool));
+
+	jmethodID constrId = (*env)->GetMethodID(env, clazz, "<init>", "(Ljava/lang/Object;J)V");
+	return (*env)->NewObject(env, clazz, constrId, jpool, p2l(ty));
+}
+
 JNIEXPORT jstring JNICALL
 Java_org_grammaticalframework_pgf_Type_toString(JNIEnv* env, jobject self)
 {