Watch live streams in any language with real-time captions and translation, running directly in your Chrome browser tab.
YouTube Live brings you concerts from Seoul, product launches from Berlin, esports tournaments from São Paulo, and lectures from Mumbai—all streaming in real time. Unlike pre-recorded videos, live streams rarely have manually created subtitles. YouTube's automatic captions can appear during a live broadcast, but only in the language being spoken. If a Japanese streamer is explaining speedrun strategies or a Spanish chef is demonstrating a recipe live, you see Japanese or Spanish text scrolling past, not a translation.
Translext captures the audio playing in your Chrome tab, transcribes the speech, and displays captions in the language you choose. You can read along, or enable spoken audio to hear the translation. Because it works entirely in the browser tab where YouTube Live is open, there's nothing to install on your system, no bots to add to a stream chat, and no recordings saved afterward. You watch the live broadcast; Translext handles the language barrier.
YouTube Live must be open as a web page in a Chrome browser tab for Translext to work. The extension captures audio only from browser tabs, so if you use YouTube's standalone desktop app or watch through a smart TV, Translext won't have access to the audio stream. Open youtube.com in Chrome, navigate to a live stream, and start playback. Once audio is playing, activate the Translext extension for that tab. The live video player will continue normally while Translext listens in the background and generates captions. You can adjust the stream quality, toggle theater mode, or expand the chat panel without affecting translation. Keep the tab active or audible in the background; if Chrome mutes the tab entirely, Translext stops receiving audio.
Live streams are unpredictable. A creator might switch languages mid-stream, background music might surge during a concert, or multiple speakers might talk during a panel discussion. Translext transcribes and translates what it hears in real time, but live speech recognition is not perfect—fast talkers, accents, technical jargon, and overlapping voices will sometimes produce garbled output. If the YouTube Live stream itself buffers or skips due to network issues, Translext only hears what actually plays in your tab, so translation will reflect those gaps. YouTube's own automatic captions sometimes appear with a delay of several seconds during live broadcasts; Translext operates independently and generates its own captions, so you'll see two caption layers if YouTube's are enabled. You can turn off YouTube's native captions in the player controls to avoid the overlap.
YouTube Live shows a video player on the left and a live chat panel on the right in default desktop layout. Translext displays captions as an overlay on the video itself, positioned where you configure them—usually bottom-center or top-center. The overlay sits above the video frame, so it will cover part of the picture. If the creator has embedded graphics, lower-thirds, or on-screen text at the bottom of the stream, your captions might obscure them. You can drag the caption box to a different corner or adjust its transparency in Translext's settings. Theater mode expands the player and shrinks the chat; fullscreen hides the chat entirely. In both cases, the caption overlay remains visible on the video. The YouTube Live scrubber and controls appear when you move your mouse; Translext captions stay put, so they may briefly overlap the control bar until it fades.
YouTube Live streams often show a countdown or looping placeholder video before the broadcast begins. Translext will attempt to transcribe any audio playing during this waiting period, but there's usually nothing meaningful to translate—just music or silence. Once the actual live stream starts and the creator begins speaking, Translext will pick up the new audio and start generating captions. You don't need to restart the extension when the stream goes live; it continuously listens to whatever audio the tab is playing.
Translext transcribes all audio coming from the tab, including video clips, music, sound effects, and background noise. If the streamer plays a montage with a song, you'll see Translext attempt to transcribe the lyrics, which may or may not be accurate depending on audio quality and how clearly the words are sung. If the streamer plays a pre-recorded video in another language and narrates over it, Translext will pick up both audio sources mixed together, which can produce confused transcription. The extension can't distinguish between the streamer's voice and other sounds; it hears the combined audio output.
Many YouTube Live streams allow you to scrub backward and rewatch a moment that happened earlier in the broadcast, even while the stream is still ongoing. Translext will transcribe and translate whatever audio is currently playing in your tab, whether that's the live edge or a section from ten minutes ago. If you jump back to catch something you missed, Translext treats it as new audio and generates fresh captions. There's no memory of what was said before; each moment is transcribed independently as it plays.
Translext depends on clear audio to transcribe accurately. If the streamer's microphone is muffled, clipping, or dropping out, transcription quality will suffer. Background noise, echo, or a creator speaking far from the mic all make speech recognition harder. If the audio cuts out entirely due to the streamer's technical issues, Translext will have nothing to transcribe during that silence. Live speech translation works best with clean, clear audio; real-world live streams often fall short of that ideal, and the captions will reflect it.
No. Translext does not record audio, store transcripts, or save any translation history. Everything happens live in your browser tab, and once you close the tab or stop the extension, the captions disappear. If you want to keep a record of what was said, you would need to manually copy text from the caption overlay during the stream or use separate screen-recording software. Translext is designed for real-time viewing, not archival or documentation purposes.
Live captions and translated audio for anything playing in your browser tab. No bots to invite, nothing to upload.