Afrikaans live captions and productivity tool for conferences & events
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
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Everything you need to follow Afrikaans conferences & events
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Afrikaans speakers.
Follow every speaker from any seat
- Point toward the PA or nearest speaker output
- Handles keynotes, panels, and Q&A sessions
- Works in large halls, seminar rooms, and outdoor venues
- No hearing loop or venue infrastructure required
International and multilingual conferences
- Speakers present in any language — you read in yours
- 60+ languages, no switching between sessions
- For global conferences, international panels, and foreign keynotes
- Translates in real time as each speaker talks
Full transcript of any session
- Record any talk or session and get the complete written transcript
- Review content you missed or want to study after the event
- Organised by speaker
- Searchable, copyable, shareable
Key takeaways from any session
- Main points and insights extracted from any session transcript
- Useful for dense technical talks and keynotes
- Organised into clear sections
- Works on any saved conference recording
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
From a far seat in a keynote hall at the Cape Town International Convention Centre or a venue in Johannesburg, the speaker is distant and the hall is loud. Point Captio AI toward the nearest PA speaker and read every word of the Afrikaans keynote from any seat.
At an academic conference — a research congress at Stellenbosch or a scientific meeting in Pretoria — presenters speak fast and mix in terminology. Captio AI captions in real time and transcribes for later review.
Industry events, agri-business summits, and technology conferences in Cape Town and Johannesburg carry content that affects your work. Captio AI captions every speaker so you follow the panel.
In a workshop or breakout, several voices contribute in an Afrikaans–English mix from around the table. Place Captio AI on the table and follow every contribution, including from the back.
The most useful conversations often happen over coffee breaks and at the conference dinner. Captio AI works in these noisy, informal settings the same way it does in the main hall.
At an international conference in South Africa, sessions switch between Afrikaans, English, and other languages. Live Translator captions foreign-language talks in real time so you follow the full programme.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
Built for the room where you cannot ask anyone to repeat
Live captions from any seat
Point the phone toward the nearest PA output or speaker. Captio AI captions whoever is presenting in real time — from the front row or the back of a large conference hall.
Works without venue infrastructure
No hearing loop, no captioning service, no advance booking required. Captio AI works independently via microphone — whether or not the venue has provided any accessibility infrastructure.
Covers what official captioning does not
Official captioning, where it exists, typically covers the main stage only. Q&A sessions, workshops, breakouts, and networking are usually left uncaptioned. Captio AI covers all of it.
Record and review after
Record any session and upload it to Audio Transcription for a full written record. Use AI Summary to extract key takeaways — useful for dense technical content you want to process at your own pace.
60+ languages
For international conferences, foreign-language keynotes, or multilingual panels. Live Translator captions and translates in real time across 60+ languages with no manual switching between speakers.
Works for networking too
The conversations in hallways and at lunch matter as much as the sessions. Captio AI works in any setting — informal, noisy, unstructured — the same way it works in the main hall.
Why Afrikaans is hard to understand
Guttural g and ch
- Sounds scraped at the back of the throat
- Afrikaans is known for its guttural 'g' and 'ch', voiceless fricatives made at the back of the throat with no lip cue. From a distant stage a deaf attendee sees nothing of these sounds, which appear constantly in Afrikaans vocabulary and separate one keynote term from another.
Large vowel and diphthong system
- Rounded vowels and diphthongs that look alike
- Afrikaans has a large set of vowels and diphthongs, including rounded vowels and the crisp, clipped qualities that make the language sound fast. Many of these sit close together on the lips, so a deaf attendee cannot tell apart the vowel that changes a technical term.
Nasalization
- Vowels nasalized before certain consonants
- Afrikaans nasalizes vowels before certain consonants, a change made at the soft palate with little visible cue. A deaf attendee watching a presenter misses a nasal quality that shifts the word, and the clipped, quick vowels give little to hold onto in a fast talk.
Cape and Namibian varieties
- Kaapse Afrikaans and standard differ on the podium
- A conference draws speakers of standard Afrikaans, the English-mixing Kaapse Afrikaans of the Western Cape with its softer g, and Namibian Afrikaans coloured by German and local languages. A deaf attendee calibrated to one meets different lip shapes from the next presenter.
Afrikaans–English code-switching
- Technical English inside Afrikaans sentences
- In multilingual South Africa, Afrikaans and English are mixed constantly — especially in the Cape — dropping English terms into Afrikaans sentences without pause. A deaf attendee lip-reading Afrikaans meets English phonology on the key vocabulary, then returns to Afrikaans, with no visual signal of the switch.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss and professional access in South Africa
Between four and five million people in South Africa live with a hearing impairment, and there are around 600,000 South African Sign Language users; the 2011 census recorded over 1.25 million people with mild-to-moderate hearing difficulty and nearly 290,000 with severe difficulty, making hearing impairment the third most-reported disability in the country. Rural studies find disabling hearing impairment approaching 9%. A large professional population — including Afrikaans speakers across South Africa and Namibia — lives and works with under-supported hearing loss.
South Africa hosts a major conference and events sector — the academic congresses of Stellenbosch and other universities, the agri-business and technology summits at venues like the Cape Town International Convention Centre. These run on spoken Afrikaans and English, often mixed, delivered over PA systems. Real-time Afrikaans captioning of keynotes, panels, and Q&A is rarely provided, and where any accessibility exists it does not reach the breakouts and networking where professional value is built.
Captio AI closes that gap. Point the phone toward the PA and read every Afrikaans keynote and panel answer from any seat, record a dense session for the full transcript, and follow the conversations over a coffee break — so a deaf professional in Cape Town or Stellenbosch gets the same value from the same conference as everyone in the hall.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreWhat you hear stays with you.
Gone the moment it ends
Captio AI processes your audio in real time and discards it immediately. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is kept.
Not a product
Your conversations are not something Captio AI sells, shares, or monetizes — to anyone, for any reason.
Not used to train anything
What you say in a doctor's appointment or a job interview never ends up in a training dataset. Not ours. Not anyone else's.
Private by default
Download on theApp StoreCaptio AI supports 60+ languages
People love Captio AI
"Cape Town talks mix Afrikaans and English on every point, delivered fast from a far stage. I caught fragments. Captio AI captioned both from my seat. I read the whole session and knew exactly what the announcements meant for my team."
"The guttural g gives me nothing on the lips and the vowels are so close together. The keynote was fast. Captio AI captioned it accurately and I recorded the session. I followed a full congress talk for the first time."
"Kaapse Afrikaans and standard Afrikaans are different on the lips, and the panel had both. Captio AI captioned every speaker and the audience questions. As a panellist I answered what was actually asked instead of guessing."
"Namibian Afrikaans has its own colouring and I still could not lip-read the fast networking chat. Captio AI captioned the informal conversations at the reception so I could take part. That is where I met my first investor."
"Cape Town talks mix Afrikaans and English on every point, delivered fast from a far stage. I caught fragments. Captio AI captioned both from my seat. I read the whole session and knew exactly what the announcements meant for my team."
"The guttural g gives me nothing on the lips and the vowels are so close together. The keynote was fast. Captio AI captioned it accurately and I recorded the session. I followed a full congress talk for the first time."
"Kaapse Afrikaans and standard Afrikaans are different on the lips, and the panel had both. Captio AI captioned every speaker and the audience questions. As a panellist I answered what was actually asked instead of guessing."
"Namibian Afrikaans has its own colouring and I still could not lip-read the fast networking chat. Captio AI captioned the informal conversations at the reception so I could take part. That is where I met my first investor."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Follow every speaker in Afrikaans.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store