Guide

How to watch hololive and other VTuber streams with subtitles on iPhone

While the stream is live, nobody has subtitled it yet: clippers translate the best moments afterwards, and a live stream rarely has a caption track for YouTube to auto-translate. To follow the whole stream as it happens, use an app that listens to the audio YouTube is playing and translates it: Hono Translate floats subtitles over the stream on your iPhone, members-only streams included.

Which option fits your case

Your situationWhat works
A clip someone has already translatedThe clip
An archive with captionsYouTube's Auto-translate
A stream that is live nowAn app that translates the audio
A members-only streamAn app that translates the audio
A stream on Twitch or another siteAn app that translates the audio

Set it up

  1. Open the stream in the YouTube app.
  2. Open Hono Translate, choose Japanese as the spoken language and the language you read.
  3. Tap Start translating sound, confirm on the iOS sheet, then tap the empty space below the sheet.
  4. The subtitle window floats up on its own and the iPhone returns to the Home Screen. Go back to YouTube.

Drag the subtitle window to a part of the screen you do not need, such as over the chat or away from the avatar. Headphones are fine: iOS hands the app the audio directly.

What goes well and what does not

  • Chatting streams work best. One voice at a microphone with little music is what speech recognition is built for.
  • Game streams depend on the game. Loud game audio and sound effects under the talking cost accuracy.
  • Singing streams are not a good fit. Lyrics over music are hard to recognise, and a translated lyric rarely reads well.
  • Voice effects and very high voices are misrecognised more often.
  • Collabs are harder when several people talk at once.
  • Names and fandom words may come out spelled differently from the way the fandom writes them.
  • The chat, Super Chats and text on screen are not translated, only what is said.

Questions

Does it work on members-only streams?

Yes. It translates what your iPhone plays, so a members-only stream you can watch in the YouTube app works like any other.

Does it work with hololive, Nijisanji and indie VTubers?

Yes, with any channel. It does not connect to YouTube; it reads the audio your iPhone is playing.

Which languages can I read it in?

Japanese and Korean speech can be read in English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and the other languages Apple's translator handles on iPhone. The exact lists come from iOS itself.

Can I keep the stream in picture-in-picture?

No. iOS allows one picture-in-picture window at a time, and the subtitles use it. Watch the stream in the YouTube app with the subtitle window on top.

Will the VTuber know?

No. Nothing is sent to YouTube or to the channel, and nothing leaves the device.

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 raw streams in general, see how to watch a raw Japanese or Korean stream with subtitles.

Guides for specific apps

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