Italian 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 Italian communicating with deaf & hoh
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Italian 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
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Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
Italian family meals — a Sunday pranzo in Milan, a dinner in Naples, a gathering in a Sicilian courtyard — are long, loud, and animated. Hearing family members speak fast and over each other in whatever mix of Italian and local dialect comes naturally. Captio AI captions what each person says in real time so a deaf or hard of hearing family member follows the full table without asking anyone to repeat.
Italian workplaces move between formal Italian in meetings and fast colloquial Italian in the corridor. A hearing colleague speaks at their natural pace in whichever register fits. Captio AI captions everything so a deaf or hard of hearing colleague follows desk conversations, corridor exchanges, and quick instructions without missing a word.
When your partner is deaf or hard of hearing and Italian is your home language. You speak naturally — casual Italian, the way you always talk at home. Captio AI puts every word on their screen as you say it so nothing is lost between you.
Daily home life in an Italian household — calling from another room, talking during the evening news, quick exchanges before heading out. Captio AI covers the continuous thread of home conversation that a deaf or hard of hearing family member might otherwise guess at.
When a deaf or hard of hearing person meets a new hearing Italian speaker — at a family gathering, a neighbourhood party, or through a common friend. Captio AI captions naturally so the first conversation is not shaped by the communication gap.
Group settings — a Sunday lunch, a multi-generation family gathering, or a social evening — where some people are deaf or hard of hearing and some are not. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking so every person at the table is fully part of the conversation.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
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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 Italian is hard to understand
Geminates are invisible
- Double consonants change meaning but leave no trace at the lips
- Italian contrasts single and double (geminate) consonants that change word meaning: 'pala' (shovel) vs. 'palla' (ball), 'nono' (ninth) vs. 'nonno' (grandfather). The distinction is entirely durational — the lips do not move differently for /l/ versus /ll/. For a deaf lip-reader, geminates are a completely invisible phonological distinction in everyday Italian conversation.
Regional dialect interference
- Southern Italian dialects follow different phonological rules than the standard
- Italian has extreme regional phonological variation: Sicilian (consonants hardened), Neapolitan (vowel dropping, metathesis), Venetian (distinct fricatives), Milanese (Lombard influence). A deaf person who lip-reads Northern standard Italian faces almost a different phonological profile when a hearing family member from the South speaks in their home dialect at a family gathering.
Gorgia toscana
- Tuscan Italian turns stops into fricatives — changing the mouth shape entirely
- In Tuscany, voiceless stops between vowels become fricatives: /p/→[ɸ], /t/→[θ], /k/→[h/x]. The lip shapes for these shifted sounds differ from Standard Italian norms. A deaf lip-reader whose reference is standard Italian will misread Tuscan fricative realisations as something entirely different.
Vowel shortening at speed
- Italian vowels shrink at dinner-table pace, reducing the lip-readable signal
- Italian vowels are distinctively open in careful speech, but shorten significantly in fast casual conversation. Hearing family members at dinner pace produce much shorter vowels — the visible mouth opening shrinks, reducing the lip-readable signal for vowel quality distinctions that carry meaning in Italian.
Southern dialect–Italian code-switching
- Sicilian and Calabrian dialect insertions arrive without any visual warning
- In Sicily, Sardinia, and Calabria, hearing family members switch spontaneously between Italian and the local dialect mid-sentence. When the dialect begins, its phonological rules differ from Italian — a deaf lip-reader tracking Italian suddenly encounters mouth shapes that don't match any Italian word they know.
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Download on theApp StoreHearing loss in Italy: millions affected, sign language recognised only recently
Italy has approximately 3.5 million people with some form of hearing loss, of whom around 70,000 are severely deaf. Prelingual profound sensorineural hearing loss — the most severe category, affecting children before they acquire spoken language — had a total prevalence of 0.72 per 1,000 in Italy, corresponding to over 40,000 cases recorded in a national study (PMC2640013). Cochlear implant provision has grown substantially — from 537 procedures in 2001 to 1,595 in 2023 (PMC12730023) — but this growth covers only the most severe and the youngest cases, leaving a large majority of hard of hearing adults without formal support for daily communication.
Lingua dei Segni Italiana (LIS) received formal legal recognition only in 2021 — late by European standards. Before that, decades of oral education and late recognition meant that a generation of deaf Italians grew up without a legally protected right to use their sign language in public life. LIS recognition is a meaningful step, but it covers formal and public settings — not the family Sunday lunch, not a Neapolitan living room, not a Sicilian family courtyard where a deaf member sits surrounded by spoken conversation they cannot access without an app on a phone.
Italy has an ageing population and a strong culture of multi-generational family life — Sunday pranzi, long summer gatherings, extended families spending weeks together. These are exactly the settings where hearing loss becomes most visible and most isolating: a deaf grandparent at the end of the table, watching a conversation they cannot follow; a hard of hearing adult who has learned to smile and nod. Captio AI captions natural Italian speech in real time — dialect, geminate consonants, fast Neapolitan pace and all — so a deaf family member reads exactly what their hearing relatives are saying, at any Italian family table.
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
"Milanese Italian at full speed was a blur — geminates, fast vowels, and words I could not segment. Captio AI reads what my husband actually says, in the way he actually says it. Our evenings at home are different now."
"My family switches between Italian and Neapolitan without warning. I was losing both. Captio AI reads the Italian portions correctly and flags when the language shifts. I follow far more than I could before."
"Office Italian is faster than I expected — meetings move quickly and corridor talk is constant. Captio AI captions everything in real time. I contribute to conversations instead of asking for summaries afterwards."
"My grandchildren use English words all through their Italian. I could not follow either. Captio AI reads the whole sentence — the Italian and the English — and I understand what they are telling me without asking them to slow down or translate."
"Milanese Italian at full speed was a blur — geminates, fast vowels, and words I could not segment. Captio AI reads what my husband actually says, in the way he actually says it. Our evenings at home are different now."
"My family switches between Italian and Neapolitan without warning. I was losing both. Captio AI reads the Italian portions correctly and flags when the language shifts. I follow far more than I could before."
"Office Italian is faster than I expected — meetings move quickly and corridor talk is constant. Captio AI captions everything in real time. I contribute to conversations instead of asking for summaries afterwards."
"My grandchildren use English words all through their Italian. I could not follow either. Captio AI reads the whole sentence — the Italian and the English — and I understand what they are telling me without asking them to slow down or translate."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Make every conversation work — for both sides in Italian.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store