Learning with YouTube
How to translate YouTube subtitles
· LangBox
YouTube can machine-translate a video's subtitles into your language for free. It shows one language at a time, though: you see the translation or the original, not both. This guide covers YouTube's own setting first, what to do when it is missing, and how to keep the original line on screen with a translation under it if you are learning the language.
Turn on auto-translate in YouTube
On a computer
- Start the video and turn subtitles on with the CC button (or press C).
- Open Settings (the gear icon) and choose Subtitles/CC.
- Choose Auto-translate, then pick your language.
In the YouTube app
- Tap the video, then tap Settings (the gear icon).
- Open Captions, then Auto-translate, and pick your language.
Menu names differ slightly between app versions and interface languages, but the order is the same: subtitles first, then auto-translate.
When the auto-translate option doesn't appear
- The video has no subtitles at all. Auto-translate works from an existing subtitle track, so there is nothing to translate. Look for the CC button: if it is greyed out, the video has none.
- It is a live stream. Live captions behave differently from those on uploaded videos; try again on the recording after the stream ends.
- The option is hidden in your app version. Try the same video on youtube.com in a desktop browser, where the setting is usually available.
Turn off auto-dubbed audio
Some videos now play in a translated, AI-dubbed voice by default. If a video has several audio tracks, open Settings, choose Audio track and pick the original language. Subtitles and audio are separate settings, so you can keep original audio with translated subtitles.
Why auto-translate falls short for language learners
- One line at a time: YouTube's player shows a single subtitle track, so you lose the original sentence when you switch to the translation.
- Translation of a translation: on videos with only auto-generated captions, speech-recognition mistakes are translated too.
- Short fragments: subtitles are split by timing, not by sentence, which makes word-by-word machine translation harder.
Keep the original: dual subtitles with LangBox
LangBox is a Chrome extension that adds a second line to YouTube subtitles: the original sentence stays on screen and a translation appears under it.
- Open a video on youtube.com in desktop Chrome with LangBox installed.
- Click the LangBox button in the player's right-hand controls (its tooltip reads "Turn on LangBox subtitle translation").
- The original subtitle line stays on the video with the translation under it, in the target language set in the extension. Click the button again to turn it off.
- LangBox reads the subtitles in the language actually spoken in the video: human captions first, auto-generated ones otherwise. Videos without any subtitles cannot be translated.
- Live streams are not supported yet.
- Translation uses a model: LangBox's managed model with trial or signed-in credits, or your own API key. YouTube's auto-translate, by contrast, is free.
- Desktop Chrome only; the extension does not run in the YouTube mobile app.
Questions
- Can YouTube show two subtitle languages at once?
- Not in its own player: it shows one subtitle track at a time. Showing the original and a translation together needs a browser extension such as LangBox.
- Is YouTube's auto-translate free?
- Yes. It is built into YouTube and needs no account or extension.
- Why are auto-translated subtitles sometimes nonsense?
- They are machine translations of the subtitle track. If that track is itself auto-generated, recognition errors carry into the translation. Videos with creator-added captions translate better.
- Does this work on my phone?
- YouTube's auto-translate works in the mobile app. LangBox's dual subtitles need desktop Chrome.