YouTube Transcript for Non-English Videos: How to Get Foreign Language Transcripts

YouTube is a global platform. Millions of videos are published in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, Arabic, Japanese, German, and dozens of other languages every day. Getting a transcript from a non-English YouTube video follows the same process as English — with a few extra steps if you need the content in a different language.

Getting a Transcript from a Non-English YouTube Video

If the video has captions in its original language (most do, via YouTube's auto-generation), you can extract the transcript in that language directly.

Using YTTranscript:

1. Copy the YouTube video URL
2. Go to yttranscript.app
3. Paste the URL and click Get Transcript Now
4. The transcript appears in the original language of the video's captions

This works for any language that YouTube's auto-caption system supports — Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, and many more.

Translating a Non-English Transcript to English

Once you have the transcript in the original language, translating it is straightforward using free AI tools.

Method 1: Use ChatGPT or Claude

Paste the foreign language transcript with this prompt:

Here is a transcript in [LANGUAGE]. Please translate it to English, maintaining the meaning and tone. Preserve paragraph breaks and structure.

[PASTE TRANSCRIPT]

Method 2: Use Google Translate

Go to translate.google.com, paste the transcript, and set the target language to English. Works well for transcripts under 5,000 characters.

Method 3: Use DeepL

DeepL (deepl.com) is considered the most accurate machine translation tool for European languages. If you're translating Spanish, French, German, Italian, or Portuguese, DeepL often produces more natural results.

What Languages Does YouTube Auto-Caption Support?

YouTube's ASR system supports over 30 languages including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Hindi, Turkish, Polish, Swedish, and more. Auto-caption quality varies — Spanish, French, German, and Japanese tend to have very high accuracy.

Using Non-English Transcripts with AI

Translate and summarize in one step:

Here is a YouTube transcript in Spanish. Translate it to English and summarize the key points in 5 bullet points.

[PASTE TRANSCRIPT]

Language learning:

Here is a YouTube transcript in French. I am a B1-level French learner. Identify the 10 most useful vocabulary words for me to learn, with English translations and example sentences.

[PASTE TRANSCRIPT]

For more AI prompt templates, see our guide on using YouTube transcripts with ChatGPT.

Tips for Non-English Transcripts

Check auto-caption quality before using. Open the video in YouTube and check "Show transcript" to preview the captions. If they look heavily mangled, the auto-ASR struggled with this video.

For language learning, leave timestamps on. Keep timestamps so you can play back specific sections while reading the text. See our guide on YouTube transcripts with timestamps.

Download the transcript as a file. You can download in TXT, DOCX, or PDF format for offline study.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does YTTranscript work for videos in any language? Yes — if the video has captions in that language, YTTranscript can extract them. The tool doesn't restrict by language.

Can I get the transcript in English if the video is in Spanish? Extract the Spanish transcript and translate it using ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Translate.

What if the video has no captions at all? If YouTube's auto-caption system couldn't process the video, no transcript data exists to extract.

Is it free? Yes. YTTranscript is completely free with no signup required.

Language is no longer a barrier to accessing the ideas in a YouTube video. With a free transcript tool and a free AI translator, you can extract and understand content from videos in over 30 languages — in minutes.

→ Get a free transcript from any YouTube video in any language — no signup, works instantly