Windows 11 has a helpful feature called Live Captions. It shows words on your screen as people speak in videos or audio, so it’s easier to follow what’s being said — especially if you are hard of hearing or in a noisy place.

Good news: You can add different languages to Live Captions. This means you can understand audio in other languages better or get captions in your preferred language.

What is Live Captions?

Live Captions is a feature that came with Windows 11 build 22557. It helps show real-time text of spoken words on your screen.

You can turn Live Captions on by pressing WINDOWS + CTRL + L on your keyboard or by going to the Accessibility settings in Quick Settings (the menu you open by clicking the speaker, Wi-Fi, or battery icons at the bottom right of your screen). Learn more about turning it on and off here.

Why Add More Languages to Live Captions?

• It helps people who don’t speak the language in the audio understand better.
• It supports people who are deaf or hard of hearing and speak different languages.
• It can make captions more accurate by giving Windows more language options to recognize what’s being said.

How to Add Other Languages to Live Captions

Follow these simple steps to add new languages for Live Captions in Windows 11:

1. Turn on Live Captions by pressing WINDOWS + CTRL + L or through Quick Settings.
2. In the Live Captions bar that appears on your screen, click the Settings button (usually a gear icon).
3. Click on Caption language, then choose Add a language.

This will open the Language & region settings page.

4. Under Preferred languages, click Add a language.

5. Search for the language you want to add. Make sure the language supports Speech recognition.
6. Click Next to continue.

7. In the next window, check that Enhanced speech recognition is selected. You can also choose other language features if you want.
8. Click Install to add the language.

Once installation finishes, your new language will show up in the Live Captions’ Caption language menu. Now you can select it anytime you want captions in that language!

Summary

• Adding languages makes Live Captions more useful for people who speak different languages or have hearing difficulties.
• It helps you understand audio content better if it’s in a language you don’t know well.
• It improves caption accuracy by giving Windows more language options.
• The process involves adding the language through Windows’ Language settings and making sure speech recognition is installed.

Need more info? Check out the official Microsoft guide here: Use Live Captions in Windows 11 (Microsoft Support).