How to Translate a YouTube Video
Choose the Language You Read
The translation goes into your native language, which starts out as your browser's language. To read a different one, open Settings and change Your Native Language. The video itself can be in any language it has captions in.
The lines are translated as you watch, a little ahead of where the video is playing. If you want the whole translated transcript without watching, ask for it by email: pick the language and it arrives as a full document.
Text You Can Read, Not Only Subtitles on the Video
YouTube can translate a video's subtitles while it plays: open Settings on the player, choose Subtitles, then Auto-translate. They scroll past in real time and you cannot easily copy them out.
Here the translation sits in the transcript, so you can read ahead, jump to any line, search for a word, copy a passage, or keep the whole thing as a file. It translates the words only. The voice in the video does not change.
When the Video Has No Captions
The translation starts from the caption track. About one in eight videos has none, and there is nothing to translate until the words are written out. AI transcription can do that from the audio. It is a Pro feature with a free trial. See how to get a transcript of a video without captions.
Machine translation is a good guide to what was said, not a final text. Names, slang and jokes can come out wrong, and mistakes in YouTube's automatic captions carry over into the translation. For anything you will publish or sign, have a person check it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I translate a YouTube video?
Copy the video's link and paste it into the box above. When the video is in a language other than yours, turn on the bilingual subtitles and every line appears with its translation under it.
Can I translate into English, or into another language?
Yes. Open Settings and set Your Native Language to the language you want to read. The video can be in any language it has captions in. If the video is already in your language there is nothing to translate.
Does the video need captions?
Yes. The translation starts from the video's caption track, either the one the uploader wrote or the one YouTube made automatically. If there is no track at all, AI transcription can write the words from the audio first. That part is a Pro feature with a free trial.
How is this different from YouTube's auto-translate?
YouTube's auto-translate puts translated subtitles on the video while it plays. This page gives you the translation as text next to the original, so you can read it ahead, copy it, search it and save it as a file. For other methods, see how to translate YouTube subtitles.
Can I save or copy the translated text?
Yes. The download menu saves the transcript as a Markdown or SRT file, with the translation only or with both languages side by side. You can also have the full transcript emailed to you, translated into the language you pick.
Can it dub the video's voice in another language?
No. It translates the words as text. The voice in the video stays as it is.
Is it free?
You can try it for free. Free use has a daily limit, and Pro removes it. AI transcription of videos without captions needs Pro, with a free trial.
User Reviews
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Used to get content for Instagram. Directly uploaded the transcription to AI tools and got the carousel copy. Which with the video would never have been possible.
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