Chinese live captions and productivity tool for communicating with deaf & hoh
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
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Everything you need to follow Chinese communicating with deaf & hoh
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Chinese speakers.
You speak. They read.
- Your words appear on their screen word by word
- No sign language required from you
- Works at home, at work, anywhere
- Any accent, any pace
When language is also a barrier
- You speak your language, they read in theirs
- Translates in real time as you speak
- 60+ languages, no setup
- Handles mid-sentence switches
Save the conversation for them
- Record and transcribe any exchange
- They can review everything at their own pace
- Organised by speaker
- Any length, any format
Make sure nothing important was missed
- Key points extracted from any transcript
- Useful after appointments, meetings, or important conversations
- Organised into clear sections
- Works on any saved recording
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
A multigenerational family dinner — grandparents in Cantonese, parents in Mandarin, cousins switching to English mid-sentence. You speak at your natural pace and your deaf or hard of hearing family member reads every word in real time, regardless of which variety you are using.
Quick questions at a colleague's desk, hallway catch-ups, informal exchanges in a Chinese workplace where conversations shift between formal and casual registers without warning. You talk normally and Captio AI makes sure your deaf or hard of hearing colleague follows every word.
When your partner is deaf or hard of hearing and you are not. You speak naturally — in Mandarin, Cantonese, or whichever variety is yours — and they read every word as you say it. No more typing at each other on phones in the same flat.
Morning conversations in the kitchen, questions across the room, catching up in the evening. Captio AI covers the low-stakes daily exchanges of shared home life — the moments that add up to genuine connection without anyone having to work for it.
A relative visiting from another city, a new colleague joining the team, a neighbour you have not properly met. You set up Captio AI and the conversation starts without any awkward preamble about how to communicate.
Family gatherings, work socials, group outings where some people are deaf or hard of hearing and some are not. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking — in Mandarin, Cantonese, or English — so nobody is left out of the conversation.
Most accurate and fastest models
character accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
You talk. They follow. No adjustment needed.
You speak naturally
No slowing down, no special phrasing, no training required. Captio AI handles everything — you just talk the way you always do.
They read as you speak
Your words appear on their screen word by word while you are still talking. Not a summary after — the full sentence, in real time.
Works wherever you both are
Living rooms, offices, restaurants, social gatherings. No venue setup, no special conditions. Captio AI works anywhere you have a conversation.
No sign language from either side
You do not need to learn anything new. Neither do they. Captio AI bridges the gap without requiring any change to how either of you communicates.
Works with how you actually speak
Fast, accented, casual. Captio AI handles real speech — not just slow, clear dictation. You do not need to perform clarity for it to work.
Private by default
Your conversations are never recorded, stored, or shared. Audio is processed in real time and discarded immediately — nothing is kept.
Why Chinese is hard to understand
Tonal invisibility
- Tones carry the meaning — and tones are entirely acoustic
- Chinese is tonal, but tones are conveyed through pitch contour — a purely acoustic signal. Lip movements do not change between the four Mandarin tones. Research estimates only around 5% of deaf people can lip-read Chinese, compared to 25% for English. When a hearing partner or family member speaks Mandarin at conversational pace, the tone — and therefore the meaning of entire vocabulary items — is absent from what can be seen.
Alveolar–retroflex confusion
- A major class of Mandarin consonants produces identical lip shapes
- Mandarin distinguishes alveolar initials (z, c, s) from retroflex initials (zh, ch, sh, r). These pairs are acoustically distinct but visually identical — the difference is made inside the mouth, not at the lips. In fast natural speech between hearing people at home or at work, an entire class of Mandarin consonant pairs are permanently invisible to a deaf or hard of hearing person following the conversation.
Dialect gap
- Each Chinese variety is a different lip-reading challenge
- A hearing family member from Guangdong may speak Cantonese; a colleague from Shanghai may use Wu-inflected Mandarin; a partner from Sichuan may carry strong regional features. Each variety has different phonological patterns, different tones, and different prosody. The lip pattern of natural Cantonese looks nothing like natural Mandarin. A deaf person cannot recalibrate for each new hearing speaker.
Word boundary collapse
- Chinese speech streams without pauses — no anchors to hold onto
- Chinese has no acoustic word boundaries in speech and no spaces between characters in writing. In fast casual conversation — at a family dinner, across a desk, in a corridor — syllables link continuously. There are no natural stopping points for a deaf or hard of hearing person trying to parse meaning. The speech arrives as an unbroken stream.
Code-switching
- Family and workplace conversations switch languages without warning
- In Hong Kong, Singapore, and urban Taiwanese households and workplaces, a single conversation moves between Cantonese, Mandarin, and English mid-sentence. For a deaf or hard of hearing person following a hearing partner or colleague, each switch resets the lip-reading challenge — and the switches happen without any audible or visible signal.
Download for free
Download on theApp Store115 million people with moderate-to-complete hearing loss. Most of the gap is at home.
China's hearing loss burden is larger than the official disability count suggests. While 27.8 million people are registered as deaf or hard of hearing under China's national disability classification, a 2025 provincial-level analysis estimated that 115 million people had moderate-to-complete hearing loss as of 2015. By 2060, that number is projected to reach 242 million — a 110% increase driven primarily by an ageing population. The people in that projection are not statistics: they are family members sitting at dinner tables across China, navigating daily life with hearing partners, parents, and colleagues who have no tools to bridge the gap.
China has over 60 laws and policies that address disability rights, including hearing loss. Enforcement is concentrated in institutional settings — workplaces, hospitals, and schools. In homes and social environments — where most of the communication gap between deaf and hard of hearing people and their hearing family members is actually felt — there is no system. Sign language interpretation is available in formal settings in major cities. At the family dinner table, between partners, in a corridor conversation with a hearing colleague, the deaf or hard of hearing person navigates alone.
A study on sensory loss and social participation in China found that hearing loss is significantly associated with reduced social participation — fewer social contacts, lower participation in community activities, greater isolation than hearing peers. The rising prevalence projected through 2060 means this gap is growing without a corresponding growth in the infrastructure that would close it. Captio AI captions any hearing speaker's Chinese in real time — Mandarin or Cantonese, fast or slow — so a deaf or hard of hearing person follows every word at a family dinner, across a desk, or in any everyday setting.
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
"My husband speaks fast Beijing Mandarin — particles, tone drops, everything compressed. I was catching maybe half. Captio AI reads every word as he says it. We stopped typing on phones at home."
"My team switches between Cantonese and English in the same sentence. I was following neither fully. Now I glance at the screen and I have both. The code-switching is handled automatically."
"My parents speak with strong Shanghai features. Lip reading Mandarin was already hard — their variety was near impossible. Captio AI captures it without any adjustment from them."
"Family conversations jump between Mandarin, Hokkien, and English. No single tool handled all of it before. Captio AI handles the switches without losing words."
"My husband speaks fast Beijing Mandarin — particles, tone drops, everything compressed. I was catching maybe half. Captio AI reads every word as he says it. We stopped typing on phones at home."
"My team switches between Cantonese and English in the same sentence. I was following neither fully. Now I glance at the screen and I have both. The code-switching is handled automatically."
"My parents speak with strong Shanghai features. Lip reading Mandarin was already hard — their variety was near impossible. Captio AI captures it without any adjustment from them."
"Family conversations jump between Mandarin, Hokkien, and English. No single tool handled all of it before. Captio AI handles the switches without losing words."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Make every conversation work — for both sides in Chinese.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store