Getting Started
Welcome to Language Player — learn any language by watching real videos with interactive subtitles. Click any word to see its definition, save it to your vocabulary, and let the app schedule reviews so you never forget.
This guide walks you through everything from creating an account to watching your first video.
Create a Free Account
You can browse Language Player without an account, but signing up lets you save words, track your watch history, and sync your progress across devices.
- Click Sign up in the top-right corner
- Enter your email and a password
- Check your inbox for a verification code — enter it to confirm your email
- You're in! Your account is free and stays free
A Free Account gives you access to 600,000+ videos across 110+ languages, the full dictionary, and spaced repetition review. See Subscription for what's included and how to upgrade if you want more.
Choose Your Languages
Language Player works with a language pair — your native language (L1) and the language you're learning (L2). Pick both to get started.
First Time
When you sign up, you'll see the language selection page with two columns:
- Left column — Choose your languages to get started (your native language). This sets the app's interface language.
- Right column — your target language (the one you want to learn).
Type to search. You can search by the language's native name, its English name, or its ISO code. For example, to find Japanese, you can type 日本語, Japanese, or ja.
If you're learning Chinese, a toggle appears below the search bar to switch between Simplified and Traditional characters.
Click a language in each column, then click Start Learning at the bottom. Your choices are saved in the URL and remembered across sessions.
Switching Later
You can change either language at any time from the header. Click the language name in the top bar to open a dropdown, or use the swap button between the two language labels to flip your pair (L1 ↔ L2). See [?title.language_switcher] for all the ways to switch.
Watch Your First Video
The fastest way to get started:
- Go to Explore from the sidebar or navigation menu
- You'll see a grid of video cards — each one has a thumbnail, a difficulty badge (like CEFR A1 or HSK 3), and a view count
- Use the level filter pills at the top to find videos at your proficiency level
- Click any video to open the Reading
The video player shows interactive subtitles beside the video. Every word is clickable — tap a word to see its definition, pronunciation, and a bookmark button to save it to your vocabulary list. Translations appear below each subtitle line in your native language.
See Explore for details on filtering, channel subscriptions, and difficulty scoring.
What You Can Do
Language Player has more than just videos. Here's what's available:
| Feature | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Interactive video player | Watch with dual subtitles and clickable words | Explore → click any video |
| Dictionary | Look up any word, see conjugations, get AI explanations | Vocab → Dictionary |
| Saved Words | Build your personal vocabulary list | Click the bookmark icon on any word |
| Review | Spaced repetition flashcards for your saved words | Vocab → Review |
| Reader | Paste or write text, read with interactive word lookup | Reading → Reader |
| TV Shows | Browse TV series with full episode queues | Notes → TV Shows |
| Live TV | Stream live broadcasts in your target language | Live TV |
| Music & Entertainment | Music videos and entertainment content | Music & Entertainment |
| Search | Find videos by title or paste any YouTube URL | Search |
Build Your Vocabulary
As you watch, click unfamiliar words and click the bookmark icon to save them. Over time, you'll build a personal vocabulary list organized by the date you saved each word.
Your saved words feed into the Review system — the app schedules flashcards so you review each word just before you'd forget it. Each card shows the original sentence where you found the word, so you're always learning in context.
See Popup Dictionary for how word lookup works, and Saved Words for managing your vocabulary list.
Free vs Pro
Language Player is free to use. The Pro upgrade unlocks:
- Full interactive transcripts with translation (free accounts see the first 10 lines)
- Hundreds of video examples per word (free accounts see 2)
- AI-powered word explanations
- Priority support
Plans start at US$10/mo with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Questions?. See Subscription for all plans, payment methods, and what's included.
Customize Your Experience
Open Settings from your profile menu to adjust:
- Display — Theme, translation toggle, phonetics (pinyin, furigana), font size, character set
- Playback — Playback speed, auto-pause, karaoke animation, smooth scrolling
- Speech — Text-to-speech voice and rate for word pronunciation
- Review — How many new vocabulary cards to introduce per day (default: 20)
Settings save automatically and sync across your devices when you're signed in.
Tips
- Click everything. Words in subtitles, words in the dictionary, words in your saved list — they're all interactive.
- Set your proficiency level on your Profile so Explore starts with the right level filter.
- Save words as you watch, not after. The bookmark button is one click and keeps you in the flow.
- Use keyboard shortcuts in the video player — Space for play/pause, ←/→ to jump between subtitle lines, R to rewind 2 seconds.
- Switch languages anytime from the header. Your settings, saved words, and watch history are tracked per language pair.
- Read the docs — each feature page ends with a Tips section that covers shortcuts and workflows you might miss otherwise.
← Back to Documentation