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How to translate a Korean YouTube livestream

YouTube's auto-captions lag behind a live, and its translation is generic — idol and group names come out re-romanised. Echo captions the audio of the YouTube app itself, in real time, in a floating window you keep above the video.

Answers, before you ask.

Does this work on YouTube livestreams as well as uploads?

Yes. Echo captions whatever audio the YouTube app is playing, live or recorded, through iOS Screen Broadcast.

Is it better than YouTube's own auto-translate?

For K-pop content, usually. Echo runs Korean translation tuned for spoken livestream speech and pins around 770 fandom terms so idol and group names stay correct.

Set it up

  1. 1

    Choose Audio mode in Echo

    Audio mode captures another app's sound through iOS Screen Broadcast — exactly what a livestream playing on the same phone needs.

  2. 2

    Set Korean → English, 繁體中文 or 简体中文

    Echo shows the original alongside the translation, so you can check a line against what you heard.

  3. 3

    Start the broadcast, then enable the overlay

    The picture-in-picture caption window floats above YouTube while the video plays full screen.

  4. 4

    Open the live and drag the overlay clear of faces

    Captions stream as people speak, and history saves locally so you can scroll back after the stream ends.

YouTube auto-captions vs Echo

  • Auto-captions transcribe, then translate generically — names are re-romanised each time they appear.
  • Auto-captions are unavailable on many lives and can lag noticeably behind speech.
  • Echo keeps a ~770-term K-pop glossary pinned so idol, group and fandom terms stay in their official spellings.
  • Echo works the same way on Weverse, Bubble and any other app whose audio you can broadcast.

Limits worth knowing

  • Some protected media blocks or mutes capture. Echo does not bypass DRM or app restrictions.
  • Screen Broadcast requires a real device — it does not run in the Simulator.
  • The free tier is 5 minutes of translation per day; a full live usually needs Echo Plus or a Day Pass.