Windows LiveCaptions gets a polyglot upgrade

What it does

LiveCaptions-Translator sits on top of Windows 11’s native LiveCaptions feature, intercepting its speech-to-text output and feeding it through translation engines. The result: real-time subtitles in another language, with the original Windows UI hidden from view. It supports microphone audio too, so you can translate your own speech.

The interesting bit

The project treats Windows LiveCaptions as a free, local speech recognition backend and layers on everything Microsoft didn’t ship. The clever part is the overlay window: borderless, transparent, and “embedded into the screen” so it doesn’t steal focus during games or videos. The README also nudges users toward LLM-based translators (Ollama, OpenAI-compatible APIs, OpenRouter) because they handle incomplete sentences better than traditional engines — a nice touch of practical engineering honesty.

Key highlights

• Plugs into 9 translation backends: self-hosted (Ollama, MTranServer, LibreTranslate) and online (Google Translate, DeepL, OpenRouter, etc.)
• Overlay mode with configurable font, color, transparency, and sentence count
• History export to CSV for meetings and lectures
• Log Cards view for recent transcription context
• Fluent UI with automatic light/dark theme switching
• Requires Windows 11 22H2+ and .NET 8.0+; no Copilot+ PC needed

Caveats

• Windows-only, and specifically Windows 11 22H2 or later — no cross-platform pretensions
• The README warns of a “display bug” if LiveCaptions isn’t set to “Overlaid on screen” before hiding it, suggesting some fragility in the window management
• .NET runtime dependency; the “with runtime” build is bulkier

Verdict

Worth a look if you’re a Windows 11 user who wants real-time translation without buying new hardware or wrestling with cloud STT APIs. Everyone else — macOS, Linux, older Windows, or those allergic to .NET — should keep scrolling.