About PlayLingo
PlayLingo turns any YouTube video into a language lesson — watch with bilingual subtitles, understand every line with Lingo, practice right in the video and review the words you saved.
PlayLingo is an app for iPhone, iPad, Mac (Apple Silicon) and Android that helps you learn a language from real videos instead of textbook dialogues. You pick something you actually want to watch, and the app gives you what you need to understand it and remember it.
The learning cycle
Every video goes through the same four steps. You can stop at any of them.
- Watch. Open a video from the catalog or any YouTube link. Subtitles in the language you learn appear with a translation under each line. See Subtitles and translation.
- Understand. Tap any word, or select a phrase, and Lingo — your AI buddy — explains what it means in this exact sentence. See Word explanations.
- Practice. Switch the video to a practice mode: listen without text, build the sentence from words, or say the lines out loud. See Modes overview.
- Remember. Save words, phrases or whole sentences. They come back as flashcards with the clip from the video, on a spaced-repetition schedule. See How practice works.
What you need
- An iPhone or iPad with iOS/iPadOS 18 or later, a Mac with Apple Silicon, or an Android phone or tablet with Android 9 or later (64-bit).
- An internet connection — videos stream from YouTube.
- An account is optional. You can start without one; signing in with Apple or Google keeps your words and progress and syncs them between devices.
Which languages
You can learn 67 languages — every language YouTube makes automatic captions for. Each one has its own catalog of videos sorted by level, from beginner (A1) to advanced (C1). Explanations and translations come in your native language.
Free and Pro
The core experience is free every day, with daily limits: watching time, practice portions and exercise lines. PlayLingo Pro removes the limits and adds in-depth explanations, pronunciation above words, part-of-speech highlighting for English and vocabulary export. See Free and Pro.
Common questions
Do I need to know the language already?
No. Onboarding asks for your level, and the catalog shows videos that fit it. Beginners start with the “Start here” shelf and short videos.
Is PlayLingo a replacement for a course?
It’s a different method: you learn from lots of understandable real speech (comprehensible input) and practice on the same material. Many people use it alongside classes or on its own.
Does it work without YouTube?
No. Videos play through YouTube’s official player, so you need access to YouTube. Uploading your own video files isn’t supported yet.
Related guides
- Subtitles and translationWatch YouTube with two lines of subtitles — the original and a translation into your language — and switch the translation or original on and off.
- Word explanationsTap any word or select a phrase in the subtitles, and Lingo explains what it means in this exact sentence — then save it to review later.
- Modes overviewWatch, Understand, Listen, Build and Speak — PlayLingo’s modes turn the same video into listening, sentence-building and speaking practice. Here’s when to use each.
- How practice worksWords you save in PlayLingo come back as flashcards with the video clip, scheduled by FSRS — the spaced-repetition algorithm used in Anki.