Translation Industry Trends: YouTube’s Auto Closed Captioning

Announced on October 7, 2021, YouTube now allows all content creators on the video platform to enable live auto captions in English – a feature previously only applicable to channels with more than 1,000 subscribers. 

Although only available in English at the moment, dozens of other languages will soon be supported by YouTube, including, Japanese, Italian, Korean, French, and Spanish. 

This is exciting news for the translation industry because it is broadening the content options for all YouTube users. 

Additionally, YouTube also stated that it will allow users to search caption transcripts on mobile “later this year,” as opposed to the current feature only available on desktop. 

As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, there are still a few questions as to whether the translation is completely accurate. While the English translation is found to be very accurate, other languages, such as Japanese, still requires some improvements.

“Improving accessibility is a top priority for YouTube, and we hope these updates will help creators reach a wider audience,” YouTube said.

Source: First in English, Soon in 12 More Languages: YouTube Offers Live Auto Captions for All, by Slator