NoaLingua First run
Your first ten minutes
Install it, choose the language you are learning and the one you want translations in, then open any YouTube video with captions turned on. The subtitle box appears within a second or two. Click a word you do not know, press Save, and it enters a review deck that schedules itself.
- 1
Choose two languages
The one you are learning, and the one you want translations in. The setup tab asks on install; if you skipped it, the same two dropdowns are in the extension popup and in Settings → Languages. (Not installed yet? Start here.)
Packs begin downloading the moment the extension knows which language you are learning, and again whenever you change it.
- 2
Open a video that has captions, and turn them on
The CC button in the YouTube player, or the c key. This matters: NoaLingua reads the captions a site is already showing. It does not create them.
Within a second or two the box appears — original on top, translation underneath. The player’s own subtitles hide themselves so the two do not stack.
- 3
Click a word you do not know
The card opens with the meaning that word has in this sentence, the exact grammatical form you clicked, its pronunciation, and real example sentences.
Press Save. The card keeps the sentence, its translation, the video title and the exact moment — so when it comes back to you next week, you get the context with it.
- 4
Learn the four keys that matter
R repeats the sentence on screen. P jumps to the real start of the previous one. N moves on. A pauses after every sentence, which is the single setting that turns watching into studying.
Every one of these is also a button under the subtitle box, and every tooltip shows your own current binding rather than the default.
- 5
Open Learn when it says something is due
The rounded Learn button in the bottom-right of the page shows how many words are waiting. One click opens a full-screen session that starts by itself.
Read the room
The two corners of the screen
NoaLingua puts almost nothing on your screen. The two things it does put there are worth understanding, because both are deliberately quiet.
Bottom right — Learn · N
Sits on the YouTube page rather than on the video, so it is there while you browse or read comments. N is how many words are due for review right now, for the language you are currently learning.
Top right — “We are preparing…”
Appears only while something is genuinely downloading or stuck. It says which language and what percentage, or which pack failed with a retry button.
When everything is fine it says nothing at all. That is deliberate: an indicator that is always there is an indicator nobody reads when it actually matters.
Worth trying early
Four things people find late
Ctrl+H — shadow the whole video
Each sentence plays, the video stops, you get a pause longer than the sentence to repeat it, then it continues by itself.
ShadowingAlt+Shift+W — on any article
Highlights every word your deck has never met, so you can see what an article will cost you before you commit to it.
Learn from websitesOpen a PDF
Two buttons appear in the bottom-right corner: a bilingual book, or the original document with every word clickable.
Bilingual PDFThe transcript panel
The whole script in sentences, searchable, with a difficulty estimate computed against your own deck and a list of the new words in this video.
Transcript and exportCommon questions
Nothing appears on the video. What is wrong?
Almost always the captions are off — press CC in the player, or the c key. If captions are clearly on and nothing reaches NoaLingua, another subtitle extension is usually intercepting them; turn it off and refresh the page.
I just installed it and saving fails.
Refresh the page. When an extension is installed or updated, the script in every already-open tab is orphaned — the box still looks alive but every message to the extension fails. NoaLingua detects this and offers a reload button. Refresh before concluding anything is broken.
How long until it works offline?
Leave the browser open for 15 to 30 minutes after choosing your languages and watch the corner of the screen. When it goes quiet, all the packs are on disk. You can use everything during the download; it just goes over the network in the meantime.
Where do my saved words go?
Into a deck for that language, on your machine. Open it with the Learn button in the bottom-right corner of a YouTube page, or the blue button in the extension popup. The number on it is how many words are due right now.
Can I change the keyboard shortcuts?
Yes. Open the quick menu in the player, go to Keyboard shortcuts, and press Edit on any row. There is also a Language Reactor preset if your fingers already know that layout.
Try it on the next video you were going to watch anyway.
Free, with every feature. No account, nothing to cancel, and your deck stays on your machine.
Add to Chrome — Free Add to Chrome The Chrome Web Store still lists this as LinguaCue — same extension, rename in progress.- Free, and not a trial Every feature on the free plan — both PDF modes, shadowing, all 30 practice formats.
- No account, no email Nothing to sign up for and nothing to cancel. There is no login screen at all.
- Two dropdowns to set up Pick what you are learning and what you want translations in. That is the whole setup.
- Your words stay yours Export to Anki, CSV, a spreadsheet or a full JSON profile — free on every plan.