Subtitles
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Subtitles · Subtitles for language learners

Subtitles in the language you are learning,
not the one you already know.

Subtitles transcribes what is being said, in the language it is being said in. It can translate, and it does not until you ask it to. For a learner the untranslated line is the useful mode and the harder one to get hold of, and it works on anything your Mac plays rather than on the two services somebody built an extension for. An ESL learner in an English-language lecture and someone keeping up a language they studied years ago want the same thing from it.

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  • Download for macOS 14.2 or later, Apple silicon
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The line arrives in the language being spoken. Turn Translate To on and it arrives in yours; hold ⌃ and the Spanish is back, in the live line and in the ⌥ rewind stack, for as long as you hold the key.

Hold ⇧ and drag the captions to move them, as you would in the app.

Hold ⌥ to rewind, and the last few boxes stack back up.

Click in the menu bar: items marked Try all work in this demo.

Reading your own language is not listening practice

Subtitles in your native language are the ones almost everything ships with, and they are the ones that quietly stop the exercise working: given text you understand instantly, you read it and the audio becomes background. You finish the film having read a film.

Subtitles in the language being spoken do the opposite job. They sit between what you heard and what you understood, which is exactly the gap that closes with practice. That is the mode this starts in, and for a learner it is the one worth leaving it in.

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What it reaches that extensions do not

Anything, not two websites

The tools built for this are browser extensions, which means Netflix and YouTube and then a cliff. This taps the audio an app plays, so a podcast client, a desktop video player, a language exchange call and a stream in a browser all caption the same way.

Audio that never had a script

Native podcasts, radio, livestreams and interviews are the best listening material and the least likely to carry a transcript in any language. A subtitle track cannot be switched on when nobody made one.

It works out which language

Language detection is automatic across sixteen languages, so switching from a French film to a Japanese podcast is not a settings trip. The model runs on the Neural Engine, so it costs nothing per hour.

Read at the speed you actually read

Lines hold for about a second and a half plus a tenth per word, and holding ⌥ rewinds the last few to scroll through. A sentence you need twice is a sentence you can have twice.

It stays up while you work

Listening practice happens alongside something else more often than not: the film in one window, notes in another, the exercise in a third. The overlay is above all of them and takes no clicks, so the subtitles do not vanish the moment you switch away to write a word down.

What the app is not

There is a category of tool built specifically for this, and for the things it does, it does them better. Worth knowing before you spend $19.

  • Translation is there, and it is not the point. Audio in the language you are learning produces text in that language until you pick a target in Translate To. Turn it on for a lecture you have to follow rather than study; leave it on all year and you have bought a reading tool.
  • There is nothing to click. No pop-up dictionary, no saving a word to a deck, no export to Anki. Language Reactor, Migaku and Trancy are built around exactly that loop, and if it is the loop you want then use them.
  • Nothing is kept unless you save it. Captions are drawn and then gone. When the audio stops the app offers to save the transcript, which is as far as it goes for mining vocabulary afterwards.
  • It is probably too early if you are a beginner. Target language subtitles help once you can follow some of the audio. Before that they are two things you cannot read instead of one, and your own language is the honest answer for a while longer.

Language learning questions

Does it translate into my language?
It can, into any of the sixteen, and it does not until you switch it on. Left alone it writes down what is said in the language it is said in, which is the mode that trains listening and the reason this is useful to a learner. When you do turn it on, holding ⌃ puts the original back on screen alongside it, so the sentence you could not follow and the sentence you can are both there.
How is this different from Language Reactor or Migaku?
Those are built around the study loop: dual subtitles, click a word for a definition, send it to a deck. They do that well and this does none of it. What they cannot do is work outside a browser tab on a supported site. This captions whatever your Mac is playing, which is most of the listening material worth using.
Which languages does it handle?
Sixteen, with the language detected automatically rather than set by hand. Accuracy is best on clear speech and drops on heavy dialect, crosstalk and fast colloquial delivery, which is worth knowing since those are also the hardest things to follow by ear.
Can I use it for a conversation exchange call?
Yes, for the other person. It reads what your Mac plays, so you get your partner's side captioned and not your own. Nothing joins the call and nobody is told. For an exchange in the same room, choose the microphone in Listen To and turn on Show Both Languages under Translate To: each of you reads the other in your own language, live, on one Mac.
Will it help with shadowing?
Partly. You can read the line while you hear it, which is the useful half. It is not a scripted transcript to rehearse against, though when the audio stops you can save what was said and read it back.

The same overlay, elsewhere

Videos with no subtitles

Subtitles over a film, a stream or a tab that never had a track.

vs Apple Live Captions

macOS has this built in and free. Where it stops being enough.

Zoom

Captions without the host switching anything on.

Microsoft Teams

Captions that do not depend on what your tenant's admin allows.

Google Meet

On-device captions, and no Workspace tier to be on.

Slack huddles

Captions with no workspace app to get approved.

Lectures

Captions live, rather than once the recording is processed.

Podcasts

Captions for the shows that never had a transcript.

vs Granola and notes apps

Complementary, not alternatives. Notes after, captions during.

Hear the line, then read the line.

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Free for 7 days, then $19 once, every future update included · macOS 14.2 or later · Apple silicon
Unlimited live captions, for as long as you own the Mac. No minutes to buy, no account, no subscription.