How to translate a Japanese livestream in real time (free, in your browser)
Published: 2026-09-15
A lot of good Japanese content only happens live: game streams, news broadcasts streamed on video sites, talk shows, late-night radio-style streams, VTubers. While it is live, there are usually no English subtitles. Translated clips may come later, but only for the parts someone chose to clip.
This guide shows how to get live English subtitles on any Japanese stream playing in a browser tab, for free, without installing anything.
What you need
- Chrome or Microsoft Edge on a computer. Safari and Firefox do not work
- Not a phone or tablet. Mobile browsers cannot share tab audio
- A one-time download of the speech recognition model. For Japanese, the recommended setting is about 590MB; after the first time it is loaded from your browser's storage
No account, no extension, no payment.
How it works
LiveSub is a website. You share one browser tab's audio with it, and it:
- recognises the Japanese speech on your own computer (the model runs inside the browser),
- translates it with Chrome's built-in on-device translator,
- shows the Japanese and the English as subtitles.
Your audio is not uploaded anywhere. Because nothing runs on a server, there is no per-minute limit, and there is no list of supported sites. If it plays sound in a tab, it can be subtitled.
Step by step
- Open the stream in Chrome
- In another tab, open https://livesubweb.com/?lang=en
- Under "Translate from / to", choose Japanese → English. This matters: the app uses a different recognition model for Japanese, so if you leave it on English → Japanese, you will get garbled text instead of subtitles
- Under "Recognition setting", leave it on Balanced for now (see below)
- Click "Start (share a tab)"
- In Chrome's dialog, pick the "Chrome Tab" section, choose the tab playing the stream, and tick "Also share tab audio" at the bottom left. Then click Share
Play the stream. Subtitles appear about one to two seconds after the words are spoken. On the first run, they start once the model has finished loading.
If nothing appears, it is almost always the audio checkbox in step 6. Press "Share again" and tick it.
Choosing a recognition setting for Japanese
Japanese is harder for speech recognition than English, so the options for Japanese are different from the English ones:
| Setting | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Light | Only if subtitles keep falling behind. It mishears Japanese a lot |
| Balanced | The recommended starting point. Good with place names and people's names |
| Japanese-tuned | A model retrained on Japanese only. Noticeably more accurate, even with fast, casual speech — but it needs a powerful GPU. First download about 730MB |
| Anime/game voice | Japanese-tuned, further trained on anime and game voices. Worth trying on streams with a lot of acting, shouting or laughter. Also needs a powerful GPU |
A few things to know:
- Japanese-tuned only appears if your browser can use the GPU, and it is hidden when "Don't use the GPU" is ticked
- If your computer cannot keep up, the app tells you and suggests a lighter setting. If Japanese-tuned is too slow on your computer, it switches back to Balanced by itself
- You can switch settings while the stream is running. Subtitles keep coming from the current model while the new one downloads
What works well, and what does not
- News and commentary. One clear speaker at a time is the best case
- Talk shows and chatting streams. Work well, but accuracy drops when several people talk over each other
- Game streams. Loud music and sound effects reduce accuracy. If you are also playing a game on the same computer and it starts stuttering, tick "Don't use the GPU"
- VTuber streams. They work the same way; there is a separate guide on watching Japanese VTuber streams with English subtitles, including tips for names
- Singing streams. Music makes recognition unreliable. Do not expect much here
Making it comfortable to watch
Floating window. Click "Show in a floating window". The subtitles move into a small window that stays on top, so you can watch the stream in fullscreen and still read them. You can move and resize it, and scroll back to earlier lines.
Display mode. Choose "Original and translation", "Translation only" or "Original only". If you are learning Japanese, seeing both is useful.
Word list. Recognition often gets names wrong: people, places, game titles, show segments. Add the correct spellings to the word list, one per line (Japanese entries need at least 3 characters), and they will be corrected automatically.
Transcript download. "Download transcript" saves the Japanese and the English with timestamps as a text file.
Honest limits
- About one to two seconds of delay. This is not simultaneous interpretation
- It is machine translation. You get the gist; jokes, wordplay and nuance often do not survive
- Names are the weak point. The word list helps, but it does not catch everything
- Only the audio is translated. Chat and text on screen are not
- Computer only. It needs Chrome or Edge on a desktop or laptop
Try it
Open the Japanese stream you have been meaning to watch, then open LiveSub on your computer: