Audio Translator

Real-time translation of any audio in your browser: live subtitles in 39 languages. Runs on your computer, no account needed.

Audio Translator turns any audio playing in your browser into live subtitles, translated in real time. Watch a Spanish documentary, a French lecture or a Japanese vlog and read along in English, or in any of 39 languages. Everything runs on your computer. Speech recognition runs locally on your graphics card, and translation uses Chrome's built-in on-device translator. No account, no cloud, no audio uploads. HOW IT WORKS 1. Click the Audio Translator icon. The side panel opens and starts listening. 2. Pick the language you hear (or leave it on Auto) and the language you want to read. 3. Subtitles appear word by word, about a second after the words are spoken. FEATURES • Real-time audio translation: speech is transcribed and translated while it plays, not after the video ends. • The whole browser: videos, podcasts, online courses, webinars and live streams on any website, not just one tab. • Live subtitles in a side panel: captions sit next to the page and never cover the video. • 33 spoken languages, 39 subtitle languages, and any pair between them. • Auto-detect: leave the audio language on Auto and the extension works out what is being spoken. • Live transcription: choose the same language on both sides to get a real-time transcript (speech to text) instead of a translation. • Easy to read: large text, the current line grows word by word and finished lines move up. No scrolling, no jumping. • Private by design: audio never leaves your device. No sign-up, no API key, no subscription, no tracking. LANGUAGES Audio Translator recognizes speech in 33 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Greek, Lithuanian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. Subtitles can be shown in all of them (Norwegian as a single language), and also in Bengali, Indonesian, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Traditional Chinese: 39 subtitle languages in total. Translate from any spoken language into any subtitle language. The most popular directions are Spanish to English, Japanese to English, Korean to English, Chinese to English, French to English, German to English, Russian to English, Hindi to English and Arabic to English, and the other way, English to Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Hindi or Japanese. Pairs without English work as well, for example French to Italian or German to Russian. WHERE IT WORKS Anything that plays sound in Chrome on a regular website: • YouTube and other video sites, including videos that have no captions at all • Live streams, premieres and live events • Podcasts, interviews and radio in the browser • Online courses, university lectures and webinars • News, documentaries, tutorials and reviews in other languages Start it from the tab you are watching. Sound playing in your other tabs is picked up as well. GREAT FOR • Foreign-language videos and live streams • Online lectures, courses and webinars • Podcasts and interviews • Language learners following native speakers at full speed • Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers who need captions where a site has none FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Is my audio sent anywhere? No. Audio is processed on your computer and never leaves it. The extension has no servers of its own, no analytics and no ads. Do I need an account, an API key or a subscription? No. Install it, click the icon, and the subtitles start. How fast are the subtitles? Words usually appear about a second after they are spoken, so you can follow live streams as they happen, not just recorded videos. Can it transcribe without translating? Yes. Choose the same language for the audio and for the subtitles, and you get a live transcript (speech to text) in that language. Does it work on YouTube? Yes. It works on YouTube and on other sites that play audio in Chrome, including videos without any subtitles of their own. Can it translate paid streaming services? Not those that use DRM copy protection. Chrome does not let extensions capture audio from DRM-protected streams. What do I need to run it? Desktop Chrome 138 or newer, for Chrome's on-device translator. A graphics card with WebGPU support is recommended. Without one, recognition runs on the processor and is slower. Why is the download about 500 MB? The speech recognition model is built into the extension, so your audio is recognized locally instead of on a server. The first start takes a moment while the model loads. Why does Chrome download something when I pick a new language pair? Translation uses Chrome's built-in on-device translator. The first time you use a language pair, Chrome downloads its translation pack once. The panel shows a button for it. Does it cover the video or change the page? No. Subtitles appear in Chrome's side panel next to the page, so the video stays fully visible. What if I don't know which language is spoken? Leave the audio language on Auto. The extension works out the language from the speech and translates into the language you picked. Is there a time limit or a minute quota? No. Recognition and translation run on your computer, so there is nothing to meter. Use it for a five-minute clip or a three-hour stream. Does it record or save what I watch? No. Audio is turned into subtitles as it plays and is never saved or recorded. Will it slow down my computer? With a WebGPU graphics card, recognition runs on the graphics card and the rest of the browser stays responsive. Without one it runs on the processor, which is slower and can make heavy pages lag. Can it recognize songs? Sung lyrics are often recognized too, but clear speech gives the best results. Loud music under the voice and several people talking at once make recognition harder. Why does it ask for access to the websites I visit? To hear audio playing in your tabs, the extension has to run on those pages. It uses that access only to pick up the sound of audio and video. Page content is not collected or sent anywhere. PRIVACY Audio Translator does not collect or send any data. Your settings stay in your browser. No analytics, no ads, no servers of its own. Speech recognition runs locally, and translation runs on your device through Chrome's built-in translator.