Dual Subtitles on YouTube: Two Languages at Once, on Computer and Phone

What YouTube shows by itself

On a computer, the Closed captions (CC) button at the bottom right of the player switches captions on and off. Subtitles/CC in the settings menu leads to Options, where you can change the font, color, opacity, size, background, window and character edge style (YouTube's caption settings page). Those controls change how captions look. They don't add a second language.

In the Android app, tap the player once, then tap Closed captions to turn captions on. To change the language, open the More menu at the top right of the player, choose Captions and pick a language. If yours isn't listed, choose Auto-translate and pick it there (YouTube's Android caption page). Both pages end with one language on screen and mention no setting for two at once, so the second line has to come from an extension or another app. If Auto-translate is missing or won't switch, that problem has its own guide.

Two languages on a computer

In Chrome, start with YouTube Dual Subtitles. Its Chrome Web Store listing describes bilingual subtitles with two languages shown together, custom styles and 55 languages. It's free.

1. Open the listing and click Add to Chrome.
2. Open a YouTube video and turn captions on with the CC button. The listing says the video must have subtitles turned on for the extension to work.
3. Choose your two languages in the extension. The original and translated lines should appear together without overlapping, as the listing describes.

The listing shows about 200,000 users, but also version 3.7.3 dated November 2024, and the developer says the extension won't collect or use your data. An extension can read the pages it runs on, so skim the permissions and the recent reviews before you install it.

Language Reactor suits people who are studying a language. Its Chrome Web Store listing mentions dual language subtitles and YouTube channels, says it runs in Chrome on Windows and macOS computers, and offers in-app purchases. We compare it with similar tools in Language Reactor alternatives. To practice speaking along with a clip, see speaking practice built around transcripts.

Both listings sit on the Chrome Web Store. On Firefox, search Mozilla's add-ons site for a version before you plan around either one.

If the second line doesn't appear

Turn on CC in the player first, because YouTube Dual Subtitles only works on videos whose subtitles are on. Reload the YouTube tab after installing the extension. If the video has no captions at all, the extension has nothing to pair, and you need something that captions the sound instead (see the next section).

iPhone, iPad and Android

The YouTube app shows one caption language, and Auto-translate is the built-in way to change it. The two extension listings above are for Chrome on a computer, and the Dual Subtitles listing says nothing about phones. If you want two languages on a phone or tablet and the video has no way to give you that, the simplest fix is to watch it on a computer. Netflix is different, and getting two subtitle languages on Netflix depends on your device.

The other way is to generate the second line yourself from the audio. Vocena, the app we make, puts live captions on screen with a translation under each line, and it works from what it hears, so the video doesn't need a caption track. Live captions are free with no time limit. Translation is part of the paid buyout or subscription. Where it runs:

• iPhone and iPad: iOS / iPadOS 26 or later. On iPhone, capturing the sound of another app such as YouTube needs iOS 27 on a physical device. Captions can float over other apps in picture-in-picture.
• Mac: macOS 15.5 or later, with a floating caption window on the desktop.

Vocena has no Android or Windows version. On Android, use a computer with the extensions above, or look at the other captioning tools in live captions on every device. Because the text comes from speech recognition rather than from the uploader's subtitle file, expect an occasional misheard word.

Reading the transcript next to the captions

On a computer, the video description has a Show transcript button (YouTube's transcript page). That page describes only this button. It doesn't say whether the panel follows the caption language you pick, so check it on a video you know:

1. Set the player's captions to the language spoken in the video and click Show transcript. Note which language the panel shows.
2. Switch the player's captions to an Auto-translate language and look at the panel again.

If the panel stays in the spoken language, you already have two languages without an extension: the translation under the video and the original text in the panel. If the panel changes along with the captions, it can't show a different language from the player, and an extension is the way to get both.

For study, read a stretch of the original text in the panel first, then play it with captions in the spoken language, and turn on the translation only for lines you missed. Finding and saving the transcript has the details on opening it. If you are learning the language, we cover how to choose subtitles for your level in another guide.