Playback for language learning
Learn from any YouTube video
Hear it, slow it down, and repeat until it clicks.
Works with movies, TV shows, interviews, lessons and more.
- 1
Paste a video
Drop a YouTube link: a movie scene, an interview, a lesson, or anything you enjoy.
- 2
Pick the moment
Set the start and end of what you want to study.
- 3
Practice and learn
Loop it, slow it down, turn on captions, and repeat until it sticks.
See it in action
Try the tools on a real clip.
Why do you live in Paris? · Easy French
Slow it down
Hear each word clearly and catch the details you might miss.
Captions and translations
Turn on the video's own captions and YouTube's auto-translate, and follow along as you listen.
Practice with loops
Repeat a phrase, adjust the speed, and give yourself time to speak.
Keyboard shortcuts
Control playback without leaving the keyboard.
- JKL
- Back, pause, forward
- ,.
- Move in small steps
- []
- Tighten the loop to a few words
- O
- Turn looping on or off
See all shortcutsFewer shortcuts
- Space
- Play or pause
- ←→
- Back or forward 1 second
- ,.
- Previous or next frame
- JKL
- Shuttle back / stop / forward
- O
- Loop the moment on or off
- []
- Set loop IN / OUT
- \
- Back to the whole moment
- P
- Practice: passes, your-turn gap, count-in
- T
- Tap the tempo (Music practice)
- Shift
- Hold to slow to 0.25×
- M
- Mirror the picture left to right
- F
- Theater mode
- Esc
- Close panel / Exit theater / Reset loop
- ?
- Show or hide this list
- Page Down
- Play / Pause
- Page Up
- Restart loop
On any Playback, press ? for this list. Frame steps assume 30 frames a second, because YouTube does not share the real rate.
Questions
- Which speeds can I use?
- The ones YouTube offers for that video, which Playback reads from the player rather than guessing. For most videos that is 0.25× to 2× in quarter steps. If YouTube rounds a speed, the control shows the speed it actually chose.
- How does the pause to say it back work?
- Shadowing works because you answer the speaker straight away. In Practice, the Your-turn gap does the waiting for you: after each pass the video stops for as long as the phrase lasted (or a fixed one to five seconds), then plays again, so your hands stay free. Drop the speed until you can hear every syllable, and Speed up brings it back to normal one pass at a time.
- Will it show captions?
- When the video has them. In Language practice Playback asks YouTube to show captions from the start; whether they exist, and in which languages, is up to the video. The CC button on the player switches between the tracks it offers, and YouTube's own auto-translate is in the player's settings.
- Can I send a drill to a student?
- Yes. Copy drill link puts the loop, the speed, the gap and the number of passes in the link. A teacher sets it once and every student opens the same exercise.
- Is it OK to use someone else's YouTube video?
- Playback never downloads, copies or re-hosts a video. The video plays from YouTube's own player, on YouTube's terms, with YouTube's own ads. What Playback saves is a pointer: the video's ID, a start and end time, a speed, and your words. If the owner removes the video from YouTube, it stops playing here too.