Japanese listening practice: live subtitles on any video (free)

Published: 2026-09-16 ・ Updated: 2026-11-03

Works in Chrome or Edge on a computer (Firefox: through a microphone or audio input; the add-on covers YouTube and Twitch; not on phones). Japanese ⇄ English only.

If you are learning Japanese, listening is often the slowest skill to build. Native-speed speech goes past before you can parse it, and if there are no subtitles, there is no way to check what you actually heard.

This guide shows a way to practise with any Japanese audio playing in your browser: you see the Japanese as it is spoken, with an English translation next to it, and you can save the whole thing afterwards. It is free, and there is nothing to install.

In short: add the free LiveSub extension for Chrome or Edge on your computer, press its icon on the tab with the Japanese video or podcast, and set “Translate from / to” to Japanese → English in the LiveSub tab that opens. The Japanese text and the English appear as subtitles while you listen, with no sharing dialog, and they work even when the video has no captions at all. Without the extension, open LiveSub in another tab and share the tab instead.

Open LiveSub and try it

What you need and how it works

• Chrome or Microsoft Edge on a computer. In Firefox, LiveSub listens through a microphone or a loopback audio input (such as Windows Stereo Mix); on YouTube and Twitch, LiveSub for Firefox turns the video's audio into subtitles directly. Safari uses the same input method but is untested
• Not a phone or tablet. Mobile browsers cannot share tab audio
• A one-time download of the speech recognition model. For Japanese, the Balanced setting is about 670MB; after the first time, it is loaded from your browser's storage

No account, no extension, no payment, and no time limit.

LiveSub is a website. You share one browser tab's audio with it. It recognises the Japanese speech on your own computer, translates it with Chrome's built-in on-device translator, and shows both as subtitles. Your audio is never uploaded anywhere.

Because it works from the sound, it does not matter whether the video has subtitles. That opens up material that has no captions at all.

Material that works well

• Recorded talks, lectures and presentations
• Interviews and conversation podcasts, played in a web player
• News and commentary videos
• Vlogs and travel videos
• Videos made for Japanese learners

One clear speaker at a time is the best case. Loud music, or several people talking at once, makes recognition worse. Recorded material is easier to practise with than live streams, because you can pause and rewind.

Setting it up

1. Set the direction and try the how-to video

Open LiveSub in Chrome. Under "Translate from / to", choose Japanese → English. Japanese uses a different recognition model, and if you leave it on English → Japanese you will get garbled text instead of subtitles.

Then press "Try the how-to video (no sharing)". It plays a short how-to video in Japanese and shows subtitles without sharing any tab, so you can check that everything works on your computer. The first time, it waits for the model to load.

2. Choose a recognition setting

Under "Recognition setting", Balanced is the recommended starting point for Japanese.

If subtitles fall behind, choose Lighter.

You can switch settings at any time, even while subtitles are running.

3. Share the tab

Open your material in another tab. Back in LiveSub, press "Start (share a tab)". In Chrome's sharing dialog:

1. Pick the "Chrome Tab" section at the top
2. Choose the tab playing the audio
3. Tick "Also share tab audio" at the bottom left
4. Press Share

4. Play

Press play. Subtitles appear about one to two seconds after the words are spoken.

Using it for listening practice

Listen first, check second

If the English is on screen from the start, you tend to read it instead of listening. Set the display to "Original only". You hear the Japanese and see the Japanese text, with no English to lean on.

When a sentence gets away from you, switch to "Original and translation" and check the meaning. The display switches while subtitles are running, so you do not need to restart anything.

A simple routine: play a section with "Original only", try to follow it, pause, switch to "Original and translation", and compare what you understood with what was said.

Rewind and replay

The subtitles come from whatever audio is playing right now. If you pause, they pause. If you rewind and play a line again, that line is subtitled again. Replaying one sentence three times is a normal way to use this.

Save the transcript

"Download transcript" saves the Japanese and the English with timestamps as a text file. You can read it back afterwards, pull out words you did not know, or search it later for a sentence you remember hearing.

Put names and terms in the word list

Names of people and places, and specialist terms, are what recognition gets wrong most. Open "Word list" and add the correct spellings, one per line. Japanese entries need at least 3 characters, English ones 4. To choose how a name appears in the translation too, write it as "たなか = Tanaka".

Anything recognition mishears is corrected to your spelling, and it also fixes the hiragana and katakana mix-ups that recognition is prone to. If a lecture repeats a term, adding it first makes the text much easier to read.

Keep the video large

Press "Show in a floating window". The subtitles move into a small window that stays on top, so you can make the video large and still read them.

If you would rather skip the sharing step, the free LiveSub extension for Chrome (it also installs in Microsoft Edge) puts the subtitles directly over the video: press its icon on the video's tab. Keep the LiveSub tab it opens while you use it, because that is where recognition runs.

Using Firefox? Firefox cannot share a tab's audio, so LiveSub listens through a microphone or an audio input instead. Open LiveSub in Firefox, play the video in another tab, and press "Start (mic or audio input)" on the LiveSub page. Allow microphone access when the browser asks. If your computer has a loopback input (such as Windows Stereo Mix), LiveSub picks it automatically; otherwise it listens through the microphone to the sound from your speakers (headphones will not work). There is no sharing dialog. On YouTube and Twitch, LiveSub for Firefox turns the video's audio into subtitles directly: press "Add to Firefox — it's free" to install it, play the video in another tab, and press "Start (YouTube / Twitch tab)"; the subtitles appear over the video.

The same setup works outside study material too: translating Japanese audio as it plays covers podcasts, online classes and web meetings.

Honest limits

LiveSub is a subtitle tool, not a language-learning app. Before you rely on it:

• The Japanese text is a machine transcription. It mishears words, and sometimes drops or adds them. Treat it as a hint for checking what you heard, not as a reference transcript
• It is machine translation. You get the gist; nuance is often lost, and when the transcription is wrong, the translation is wrong with it
• About one to two seconds of delay behind the audio
• Music and overlapping voices reduce accuracy
• Only the audio is used. Text on screen is not translated
• Computer only. It needs Chrome or Edge on a desktop or laptop (Firefox: through a microphone or audio input)

Wrapping up

With LiveSub, any Japanese video or podcast in your browser can become listening material, captions or not. Start with "Original only", check with the English when you get lost, and replay the lines that got away.

Open the Japanese audio you want to practise with, then open LiveSub on your computer and press "Try the how-to video (no sharing)" first.

About this guide: written by the maker of LiveSub. Steps, button names and figures are checked against the LiveSub app as of the date above. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.

Open LiveSub and try it