Language learning with YouTube, with the transcript beside you

Real videos move fast

Videos made for native speakers are the best practice there is, and the hardest. People talk quickly, run words together and use slang no textbook has. You catch half a sentence, rewind, catch the same half again, and lose the thread of what the video was about.

Claras helps on both sides of that. Before you watch, a summary in a language you know tells you what the video covers, so you can follow it. While you watch, the transcript shows the exact words, with a time on every line. Afterwards, you can search it for a word you half heard.

It isn't a language course. There are no lessons, no dual subtitles and no flashcards. It makes real videos easier to work with, and you still do the learning.

Three ways to learn a language on YouTube with Claras

These are suggestions, not stories from real learners.

Preview, watch, review

Say you're learning German and found a 15-minute video about life in Berlin. Set the summary language to English and run it. Read the key takeaways and chapters first, so you know what's coming. Then watch with the transcript open, and stop on lines you don't follow. Afterwards, reread the transcript without the video and see how much you understand now.

Collect the words you keep missing

Say a phrase keeps coming up that you can't make out. Search the transcript for the part you did hear. Search matches part of a word, so a few letters is enough. Download the transcript as text and keep a file per video.

Claras doesn't translate transcripts or make word lists. For that, use Send to AI. It copies the transcript and opens Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Gemini Notebook or Perplexity, where you can ask for a translation or a glossary. Check what it gives you with a dictionary or a teacher.

Reading practice in the language you're learning

Say you're learning Spanish and you watch a lot of English videos for work. Set the summary language to Spanish. Every summary becomes a short read in Spanish about a topic you already understand, which makes it easier to follow.

You can also try custom summary instructions in Settings, up to 500 characters, such as "Use short sentences and common words". They shape the section summaries, though not the opening or the key takeaways, and how simple the result is depends on the AI.

Learn Japanese, English or another language with YouTube

Any video with captions works, whatever its language, as long as it's a normal video link. Summaries must be in one of the 15 languages. Learning English with YouTube is the simplest case, because the web app asks for English captions first. For other languages, see the caption tip in the limits below.

What Claras doesn't do for language learners

No translated transcript, no dual subtitles

The transcript and .srt file stay in the language of the captions. Claras never translates them, and it doesn't show two languages side by side. Only what the AI writes follows your language choice.

Which captions you get

• The web app asks for English captions first. If a Spanish video also has English subtitles, you get the English ones. Set the video language in the Chrome extension to get the Spanish captions instead. That menu lists the same 15 languages as the summary.
• A video that switches languages has its captions in one track, so you get whichever track Claras picked.
• YouTube's automatic captions mishear words, and Claras doesn't correct them. Check odd lines by ear.

Links that fail

Shorts links and live streams don't work. A YouTube video with no captions needs AI transcription, up to 30 minutes on the free plan and 3 hours on a paid plan.

Quotes in summaries are translations

If an English summary of a Spanish video quotes the speaker, that quote is the AI's translation, not her words. Look in the transcript for what she really said.

Ask AI and non-Latin scripts

Ask AI finds passages by matching the words of your question, and it only recognises words written in the Latin alphabet. On a Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi or Russian transcript nothing matches, so it answers from the opening passages of the video. Transcript search works in any script, so use that to find a moment.

No teaching tools

No lessons, grammar notes, pronunciation feedback, flashcards or spaced repetition. Use Claras next to the tools you already learn with.

Changing language means a new run

A summary is written in one language. To read it in another, run the video again, which counts as another video on the free and Pro plans.

Start with the free plan

The free plan gives you 3 videos a month, with no card. YouTube videos with captions use none of your transcription hours, however long they are.

If you watch something every day, Pro's 50 videos a day is more than enough. Remember that running the same video again in another summary language counts as another video. Unlimited mainly makes sense if you also upload a lot of your own audio.

Both paid plans start with 14 days free, and first payments come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. See what each plan costs, or go back to all solutions.