Viewers Hit by YouTube's Bad Auto-Translation
66 posts across 9 communities in the last 30 days; 74% from r/youtube.
“Thank you for creating Subtitle Translator. I really like the idea of being able to click on words in subtitles, save them with context, and export them to Anki. The extension works for me on YouTube, but I can't get it to work on BBC iPlayer. Hovering over words in the…”
“So recently youtube has been auto-translating everything, giving me the english title of videos in other languages. When available, it also auto-dubs in an AI english voice. I want these videos to default display original title (in original language) and original audio. But i…”
“This a HUGE thing for me (for learning languages). I'm so happy lol. I went to test it on a new tab same browser and computer and channel, it was on automatic subtitles by default, and at first it loaded German only then a few seconds later added the English translation right…”
Users who watch videos in multiple languages are experiencing frustrating and unpredictable behavior with YouTube's automatic translation and dubbing features. These features often activate unexpectedly, misinterpret content, or override user preferences, leading to a degraded viewing experience and a lack of control over their subtitles. The algorithm struggles to understand users' language proficiency, creating inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
SOURCES (60)
“In the past, in many of their feature tests/random ui changes in the past, they seemed to test an auto translation feature for the subtitles but it would always quickly disappear. It stopped appearing several years back but to me it makes much more sense…”
“I wonder if users from, say, Germany or the UK had some videos geo-restricted too. And, this neon globe also feels like another UI design quirk I haven't seen before submitted by /u/paul_405 [link] [comments]”
“Thank you for creating Subtitle Translator. I really like the idea of being able to click on words in subtitles, save them with context, and export them to Anki. The extension works for me on YouTube, but I can't get it to work on BBC iPlayer. Hovering over words in the subtitles doesn't show a translation, and the keyboard shortcuts don't seem to work either. Does the extension support BBC iPlayer? If not, are you planning to add support for it? I would really appreciate it, as I wa”
“Describe the bug My app is in english, even though my system and all my apps are in pt BR. Screenshots (if applicable) <img width="1920" height="1080" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user attachments/assets/9222a71c 1cdd 4982 9d47 98e262e60489" / System: OS: Secureblue 44 Package: Flatpak Version 1.4.0”
“same channel was where i first noticed it too, seems like its been rolling out slowly since then [re: If youtube changing the language from thumbnails? Has anybody else noticed it?]”
“So recently youtube has been auto-translating everything, giving me the english title of videos in other languages. When available, it also auto-dubs in an AI english voice. I want these videos to default display original title (in original language) and original audio. But i actually can't find an option to do that. Am i missing something or does youtube force you to pick one language? submitted by /u/not_a_nazi_actually [link] [comments]”
“I’ve noticed not every video but a decent amount that I watch now on YouTube on my Apple TV use another language instead of English (it might be Arabic but I’m not positive) when populating the auto subtitles. I’m a big fan of subtitles for videos, shows etc. It’s not every video but enough that it becomes frustrating. Any idea how to keep English for auto subtitles consistently? I went into setting and it looks like English is the language. submitted by /u/inbetweensound [link]  ”
“I found a drawing channel and believed it was an spanish-speaking one based on the thumbnail, but the video was fully in japanese (both tts and in-video text). I saw some posts talking about this but from months ago, so I guess the update reached me now... submitted by /u/bluepearlyuri [link] [comments]”
“Just noticed how YT alters the spoken words in their subtitles. Seems fishy. submitted by /u/anonskeptic5 [link] [comments]”
“For context, I use English as the display language on YouTube. When I search for videos using English, some of the video titles are translated to my native language (inaccurately), but when I search for videos using my native language, some of the video titles are translated to English (also inaccurately). I have set my preferred languages to my native language and English in the settings but this still happens. To anyone who doesn't speak English as the native language, do you experience th”
“This a HUGE thing for me (for learning languages). I'm so happy lol. I went to test it on a new tab same browser and computer and channel, it was on automatic subtitles by default, and at first it loaded German only then a few seconds later added the English translation right below it. I haven't done other tests cause I'm just so excited. Anyone else also getting this??? I hope they keep this feature (still A/B for now?) cause I went to check online if this has been a thing but googl”
“why? i literlly have my preferred language as english, but the captions are still always in bangala specifically submitted by /u/redditbotchosenname [link] [comments]”
“I've seen a few people post about this, how did you solve it? I'm American but currently in Japan My shorts are in English and meant for Americans, but they only get shown to Japanese people. The swipe rate is atrocious (10-20% stay), never seen anything this low before. My videos in the US have 100x more views and 70+% stayed to watch, but as soon as I moved to Japan they just die. Any way to fix this? submitted by /u/soulglider26 [link] [comments]”
“Have you ever noticed how the auto CC translations can crucify the actual utterances of the artist? I'm retired, and they're a 20-minute drive up the road. I'll fix each one for $5 each. And it's an easy WFH job! I'm gonna be so rich... submitted by /u/Massive_Bullfrog8663 [link] [comments]”
“WHATWHATWHATWHAT WWWWUBYU WUBWUBWUBWUB (INCOMPREHENSIBLE MEAT NOISES) [re: YouTube Ruined It!]”
“It generates ai voice for more languages out of the videos original one, but sadly it makes it auto choice for people who watch. So if you like to watch someone and he speaks english, it will auto switch into ai french for you if you are set up as french [re: YouTube Ruined It!]”
“They suck even more than the dub in my experience, you get like 15 seconds worth of subtitles at once that's on screen for 3 seconds, then it disappears and you get nothing until everything that was in those subtitles gets spoken, then it repeats. [re: YouTube Ruined It!]”
“For some context, I’m Turkish and have my YouTube account location also set in Turkey but whenever I watch a YouTube video in Turkish it gets auto translated with the stupid robot voice in to English presumably because I have my menus set to English as it’s easier to get around. Does anyone know a fix for this? (P.S. this is the stupidest thing ever to be a problem like my account is set in Turkey and google has acces to all our infos anyways atleast use it to fix something like this ffs)”
but useful for videos in hindi language [re: YouTube Ruined It!]
“Thank you so much for your answer! My channel is called Lumières en Poudre. It's in French, but I'd love to interview English-speaking guests from all over the world (or Spanish-speaking guests, since I speak all three languages). I'm actually trying to convince an Australian ghost hunter to come on the podcast! :) [re: My podcast is suddenly taking off, and I'm struggling to define its direction. Any advice?]”
“I mean, I was able to choose the English audio when the video first came out, but now I can't submitted by /u/The_omni_watcher [link] [comments]”
“Before reporting [x] I searched existing open and closed issues for this problem. [x] I checked the relevant documentation and troubleshooting guidance. [x] If using a development/PR build, I checked the relevant documentation Markdown files in the repository at my build’s commit or branch; otherwise, this does not apply. What happened? Attempted to upload a release where the metadata tracks original language as Japanese, and the files are muxed with Japanese being the 2nd audio track, and an En”
“Before reporting [x] I searched existing open and closed issues for this problem. [x] I checked the relevant documentation and troubleshooting guidance. [x] If using a development/PR build, I checked the relevant documentation Markdown files in the repository at my build’s commit or branch; otherwise, this does not apply. What happened? Attempted to upload a release where the metadata tracks original language as Japanese, and the files are muxed with Japanese & English audio, but only English tr”
“Bug description The preferred language caption isn’t working. Even though I selected English, Hindi captions are still appearing on Hindi videos. <img width="720" height="446" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user attachments/assets/3a452b4a 1b78 4586 8057 979762e07991" / App version patched 21.40.161 Error logs Acknowledgements [x] I have checked all open and closed bug reports and this is not a duplicate. [x] All requested information has been provided properly.”
“Im trying to look for a way to turn this off, and i cant seem to find it. If there is a way to turn it off and i cant find it, why da hell is youtube making it hard to turn it off? submitted by /u/grand_cha2 [link] [comments]”
“I sometimes like to turn on subtitles when I watch YouTube. For some reason it has started defaulting to Arabic (which I can't read). I tried to manually switch to English but I don't even have an English option. I can choose Russian, Hebrew, Punjabi, or a few other things I can't read, but not English. Seriously wtf? This has just started in the last couple days. submitted by /u/IntelligentAd9859 [link] [comments]”
“Is there really a no way to turn-off* captions- and not auto turn on every video? submitted by /u/bhccm [link] [comments]”
“Any chance that YouTube will finally allow editing the transcript of dubbed audio? At the moment it is for viewing only, which is pointless. Dubbing will be avoided until it can be edited/fixed. There are too many mistakes in dubbed videos to be published. For example, in the recent video I say “pull,” but in the Polish dubbed version it says “basen” (pool) submitted by /u/Murky_Beyond_1225 [link] [comments]”
“As someone who watches a lot of content in english even though its not my first language, I actually prefer when subtitles are edited in. The youtube auto CC is so bad sometimes it makes things more confusing. My girlfriend always complain that I have subtitles on everything but it just helps my brain process faster. I think for long form content its even more useful cause people drift off and reading along keeps them engaged. The only thing I would say is make sure they dont cover important par”
“Tbh I don't think its necessary, if you're videos are in English they can simply use the YouTube cc. Its isn't so out of context to add the subtitles, but I think that's just base on preference.”
“Being in the Vtuber space it's not un-common to see Subtitles for non-english speakers but does it still make sense to add them when you do speak English? Are subtitles already edited into the video make you want to watch them more or less because they're permanently on the screen unlike the youtube CC. I wanted to make a long form video and I'm unsure which way to go haha. submitted by /u/Human-Bat-9028 [link] [comments]”
“So like the 1st 10 subtitles of any video are not showing and then they are delayed like by a sec or 2 😔😔 am I the only one facing the issue ?? Or is it them pls tell guys submitted by /u/AnshikaRana12 [link] [comments]”
“Honest feedback on the landing page: I don't even know what language that is, where's the English option? It displays an incredible lack of self-awareness to just mix English with whatever the hell that other thing is, like everybody else on the internet should also just immediately understand. If it's for your countrymen only and everybody else there also speaks in mix, fine, none of my business; if I had come across this elsewhere I'd just be like "ok, no English version o”
“That was a high quality French video. I like the dubbed feature bc I can find good videos that aren’t English.”
“subitles is like a dude explaining something and the text comes out garbled, another dude warks by and farts and that gets goes into the subtitles too. Youtube is really the poster child of dogshittification well done Youtube.”
“Reading mode runs on Defuddle, and its YouTube extractor picks the caption track by a preferred language first, before it looks at the video's own default track. A comment in that code says YouTube also lists the auto-translated tracks, so an English preference can land on the English translation even when Portuguese auto-captions exist. My guess is the clipper passes your browser language there, which would also explain the Spanish case in the comments. Quick test: put Portuguese at the top”
“This sucks, and I couldn't understand what people are saying. I prefer word-by-word subtitles. This is inaccessible, and I couldn't even enjoy videos with this awful change. Is there any way to reverse this awful change? submitted by /u/Competitive-Ball5107 [link] [comments]”
“So I speak multiple languages—Chinese, Japanese, and English—and YouTube automatically translating video titles has always annoyed me. If I can read the original language, I obviously want to see the original title, not some crappy automatic translation. But I always assumed the feature was at least useful for people who don't understand the original language. Apparently, I was wrong. I was doing some research today and needed to find Korean videos on a specific topic. I tried searching for”
“seems like it's not language-specific then, probably something on the clipper side”
“It happened to me too with videos in Spanish, I don’t know why… hope it can be fixed soon”
“The video I'm playing is in Portuguese and the auto-generated captions are in Portuguese as well, but reading mode on the Web Clipper gives me the full transcript in English. I don't like the translation; I can read English, but I'd much rather have the original text. Is there any way to change this? Any help would be greatly appreciated! submitted by /u/dsfagundes [link] [comments]”
“Even the auto-generated subtitles disappeared. I rewatched some old videos which I knew for sure had subtitles in them, well, it all gone No I didn't switch off cc submitted by /u/Thesmallpistol [link] [comments]”
“I thought that that automatic translation to languages was just subtitles to choose from. Sadly later i learned it is ai voice and it will auto pick it on for users instead of my normal voice”
“Lately I've been seeing this quite often. I sense YouTube is also succumbing to this BJP government's Hindi imposition agenda! submitted by /u/Sufficient-Result987 [link] [comments]”
“Yeah, the problem is EVEN if your contents is in English there is no guarantee it will be shown to only English speaking countries - YT will decide and it does not have our logic, your video can end up god knows where.”
“Maybe do in Italian first and when you bigger then switch to English? YT can also translate from Italian”
“Is anyone else having an issue with subtitles when trying to watch a movie? I would like subtitles to translate foreign language to English, but not have subtitles for the entire movie. I've tried the English [CC] option and just the English option, both seem to do the same thing. Neither options would translate the Apes sign language when trying to watch The Planet of the Apes movies on YouTube or Google TV, and right now I'm currently trying to watch Captain America Winter Soldier and”
“I know other people have asked similar questions like a year ago but idk if the system has changed at all especially since I only just got this problem somehow. So I natively speak both Japanese and English so I watch content from creators in both languages, but Japanese is my primary so that's what my phone / Google account is set too. YouTube has for years since auto dubbing was added not made this a problem until like yesterday when now half of the videos in English I watch are now auto-d”
“There's literally no reason to turn them off. They don't even have to do anything, it's all automatically generated. Ever since i got hearing loss i started to rely on subtitles but many creators turn them off. How am i gonna watch your videos? Why do you turn it off? It's more effort to turn it off than to leave it be. submitted by /u/NormalAppearance2851 [link] [comments]”
And still they do not have ai automatically translation in all languages
“What is your native language? Just film in your natural language and YT will translate anyway with auto dubbing. You never know where YT will place your videos anyway, one of mine went to India and Malaysia and growing there a lot, more than 30k views now also the video is in perfect English :-). You never know. India, China, Malaysia are also huge markets. Why target only English if it’s not even your language?”