Guides

How to translate words in YouTube and Netflix subtitles on a computer and a phone

Step by step: see what a word in a subtitle means in that exact line, in Chrome, on an Android phone and in VLC on Windows, and keep it for later.

You are watching in the original, a word goes by, and you want to know what it means here, in this line, without leaving the video for a dictionary. This is how to do it on each device.

On a computer, in Chrome

1. Install the Subtitle Notes extension from the Chrome Web Store and sign in with Google.
2. In the player, turn on subtitles in the language of the video.
3. Hold Ctrl and drag across a word or a phrase in the subtitle. The video can pause while you read, and a card shows what the selection means in that line, with synonyms and a short note.
4. To keep it, hold Ctrl+Alt while you select, and it goes straight to your library. Alt alone gives a quick translation.

It works on YouTube, Netflix and most other video players on the web. On any other page you simply highlight text; in Chrome's PDF viewer you save a word from the right-click menu.

On an Android phone

1. Install Subtitle Notes and sign in with the same Google account.
2. The app asks you to turn on its service in the phone's settings. It needs it to see the words of the subtitle on the screen; nothing is read until you touch the edge.
3. With a video in landscape, hold the left edge of the screen with your thumb. The video pauses and the picture stops.
4. With another finger, run along the words of the subtitle. The meaning in that line appears, and you can save it.
5. In portrait, for short videos, hold the top centre of the screen, near the camera.

On Windows, in VLC

The Subtitle Notes program for Windows reads subtitles in VLC and text in other programs, and saves into the same library as the phone and the browser.

Tips

• Select the whole phrase when it is an idiom: "spill the beans" means something its words do not.
• Saved words come back for review on a schedule, and can be exported to Anki.
• Ten careful translations a day are free; Pro removes the limit.

More guides

• How to learn a language from TV series without pausing every five seconds

  A practical way to learn from series in the original: which words to look up, why the meaning in the scene matters, and how to keep the words you find.

• Why translators get idioms in subtitles wrong, and how to read them

  Word-by-word translation turns idioms into nonsense. Five real subtitle lines, what they really mean, and how to recognise an idiom when you meet one.

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