Guide
Can iPhone Live Captions translate? What to use instead
No. Live Captions turns speech into text in the language it was spoken in: Japanese comes out as Japanese, Korean as Korean. There is no setting that makes it translate. To read a video in your own language while it plays, you need something that translates the audio itself: Hono Translate listens to what your iPhone is playing and floats translated subtitles over any app, on the device.
What Live Captions does
Live Captions is an accessibility feature, built for people who cannot hear the audio. Turn it on in Settings, Accessibility, Live Captions, then choose iPhone Audio in its window, and it transcribes whatever your iPhone is playing — a video, a podcast, a call — or, with Microphone, the people around you. It needs an iPhone 11 or later.
It listens in a limited set of languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German and Spanish, depending on the region. Whatever it hears, it writes down in that same language. That is the whole design: a transcript, not a translation.
The copy-and-paste workaround
You can tap the More button in the Live Captions window, choose Copy Captions and paste the text into the Translate app. It works for a short clip you can pause. For anything longer it means stopping every few sentences, switching apps and reading the translation away from the picture, and for a live you miss what is said in the meantime.
The other built-in options
| Feature | What it does with a video |
|---|---|
| Live Captions | Transcribes it, in the spoken language |
| Live Translation | Nothing: it is for Phone, FaceTime, Messages and AirPods conversations |
| Generated subtitles (iOS 27) | English speech only, in supported apps |
| The video's own subtitles | Translated if the app offers it, like YouTube's Auto-translate |
If the video already has subtitles, turn those on first; on YouTube, Auto-translate can put them in your language. The full comparison of every option goes through each case.
Translated subtitles over any app
- Open Hono Translate and choose the language being spoken and the language you read.
- Tap Start translating sound, confirm on the iOS sheet, then tap the empty space below the sheet.
- The subtitle window floats up on its own and the iPhone returns to the Home Screen. Go back to your video and press play.
The subtitles float in a picture-in-picture window over the video, and new lines appear as people speak. It uses the audio iOS hands it, not the microphone, so headphones are fine. Recognition and translation both run on the iPhone; nothing is uploaded.
Questions
Is there a setting that makes Live Captions translate?
No. Live Captions has settings for how the text looks, and for keeping call captions, but none for translation. It always writes in the language it hears.
Why does Live Captions not work on my video?
Check that you chose iPhone Audio rather than Microphone in its window, and that the video's language is one Live Captions supports in your region. It also needs an iPhone 11 or later.
Can Live Translation or AirPods translate a video instead?
Not a video your iPhone is playing. They are built for conversations — what Live Translation and AirPods can and cannot translate.
Which languages can Hono Translate translate?
It listens in English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Cantonese, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Hindi, Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese, and writes subtitles in any language Apple's translator supports on your iPhone.
Can an iPhone app hear the sound another app is playing? Do I need a second phone?
Yes, and one iPhone is enough. Through screen sharing — the iOS sheet you confirm when you start — iOS hands the sound that is playing to the app you pick. Hono Translate takes that audio from iOS, not from the microphone, so headphones are fine, and its subtitles float in a Picture-in-Picture window over TikTok, YouTube or any other app.
For the step-by-step setup, see how to translate any video you watch on iPhone.
Guides for specific apps
- How to translate a YouTube video or live stream on iPhone, even with no captions (free to try)
- How to translate a TikTok LIVE on iPhone in real time (one phone, free to try)
- How to translate an Instagram Live on iPhone in real time
- How to get live translated captions on a Twitch stream on iPhone
- How to get translated subtitles on a Weverse live on iPhone (one phone, with or without membership)