Live translated subtitles for raw anime and K-drama
Updated 2026-07-26
To watch a show that has no subtitles yet — a raw anime episode, a K-drama the night it airs, a Japanese variety show nobody subs — play it on your Mac and let Tingdong caption it live: it listens to the audio and floats translated subtitles over any player or site, at simultaneous-interpretation pacing.
How to set it up
- 1Open Tingdong and pick “Live Listen”
Choose “Screen sound” so it hears exactly what the episode plays.
- 2Press Start and hit play
Floating subtitles appear over the video: original line on top, your language below. Works with any player — browser, VLC, IINA, local files.
- 3Optional: spoken interpretation
For variety shows and long streams, the translation can be read aloud so you can look away.
No more waiting for fansubs
The usual options for raw shows are waiting days for subs or wiring up per-line subtitle hacks that lose context between lines and only run on Windows players. Tingdong translates a running stream of speech, not one subtitle line at a time, so context carries across sentences — and it doesn’t care where the video plays: streaming sites, local files, live broadcasts, VTuber streams. Japanese, Korean and Chinese are auto-detected like the rest of the 60 languages, including mid-episode switches.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work with local video files and players like VLC or IINA?
Yes. It captures the sound your Mac plays, so any player works: VLC, IINA, QuickTime, a browser tab, or files straight off your disk. No plugin per player.
How accurate is it on anime and dramas?
Dialogue-driven scenes translate well — the engine keeps context across sentences instead of translating line by line. Fast comedy banter, songs and heavy slang are genuinely hard for any machine translation; the original line always stays on screen above the translation so you’re never guessing blind.
Can it handle live broadcasts and VTuber streams?
Yes — live is where it shines, because no sub track ever exists for a live stream. Captions run at simultaneous-interpretation pacing, starting while the sentence is still being spoken.
Does it need the show to be in Japanese?
No. 60 input languages are auto-detected — anime in Japanese, K-drama in Korean, C-drama in Chinese, a Spanish thriller: it just follows, translating into your language.
Try it on your next video, meeting or call
Download free for macOS100 trial credits on install · No signup, no credit card