How to Add or Remove Language to Live Captions in Windows 11

What is Live Captions?

Windows 11 Live Captions is a built-in accessibility tool that automatically transcribes spoken audio into text on your screen in real time. It works with any audio playing on your computer, including videos, podcasts, and calls. You can turn on Windows 11 Live Captions languages and audio transcription instantly by pressing the Win+Ctrl+L keys on your keyboard.

You can also go to the Accessibility settings in Quick Settings. Quick Settings is 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. Windows gets more language options to recognize what’s being said.

How to Add Other Languages to Live Captions

You can add new Windows 11 Live Captions languages by opening the Live Captions bar, clicking the settings ⚙️ gear icon, selecting Caption language, and choosing Add language. This downloads the necessary speech files so your computer can accurately translate and transcribe foreign audio directly on your screen without needing an active internet connection.

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. It usually looks like a gear icon.
3. Click on Caption language. Then choose Add a language.

4. This opens the Language & region settings page.
5. Under Preferred languages, click Add a language.

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

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

10. Once installation finishes, your new language shows 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.

Using multiple Windows 11 Live Captions languages helps you follow foreign audio content, improves transcription accuracy for accented speech, and makes computer media more accessible. Setting up extra language packs ensures your screen reader displays correct text regardless of what language the video or voice call uses.