Loom von Connor Finnerty

Loom: Dual-language subtitles for YouTube, with phonetic annotations and romanization.

Loom is a language-learning tool for anyone who watches YouTube videos in a language they're studying. It renders TWO subtitle tracks at once - the original (foreign) language on top, your native language on the bottom - so you can follow the dialogue without switching back and forth.

For non-Latin scripts, Loom adds a romanization line above the foreign text (e.g. "konnichi wa" above "こんにちは") so you can read along even before you know the characters. For CJK languages it additionally adds per-character readings: furigana for Japanese, Pinyin or Zhuyin for Chinese, Jyutping for Cantonese, Revised Romanization for Korean. For Traditional Chinese, Loom can also show the Simplified form of each character beneath it.

Every visual aspect is customizable: per-layer colors, fonts, sizes, outlines, glow, and opacity. 28 thematic color presets ship out of the box. Settings persist per device. Loom works on any YouTube video that has manual (not auto-generated) captions in your target language.

Loom is a research project from nerv-analytic.ai. It's free, has no ads, and doesn't collect personal data. See the privacy policy at loom.nerv-analytic.ai/privacy for details.