Telugu 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 Telugu communicating with deaf & hoh
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Telugu 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.
Telugu family meals in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana — at home in Vijayawada, Hyderabad, or Visakhapatnam — often move fast, with multiple family members speaking in overlapping conversational Telugu. A hearing family member speaks naturally and quickly. Captio AI captions what they say word by word so a deaf or hard of hearing family member stays in the conversation.
Telugu workplaces in Hyderabad run in a fast mix of Telugu, English, and Urdu loanwords for everyday talk. A hearing colleague speaks in whichever blend comes naturally. Captio AI captions what they say in real time so a deaf or hard of hearing colleague follows desk conversations and quick questions without missing a beat.
When your partner is deaf or hard of hearing and Telugu is your home language. You speak naturally. Captio AI puts every word on their screen as you say it — no slowing down, no repetition, no typing between you.
Daily home life in a Telugu household — calling from across the house, talking during the evening serial, quick questions while getting ready. Captio AI covers all the small everyday exchanges that add up to connection over time.
When a deaf or hard of hearing person meets a new hearing Telugu speaker — at a family function, a community gathering, or a temple event. Captio AI captions the new person's speech naturally so the meeting is not shaped by the communication gap.
Group settings — a family gathering for Ugadi, a large multi-generation household, a community event — 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
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 Telugu is hard to understand
Retroflex and dental contrast
- The retroflex-dental distinction in Telugu is invisible at the lips
- Telugu distinguishes dental /t/, /d/ from retroflex /ʈ/, /ɖ/ — a contrast that is invisible at the lips. The tongue position differs internally, but the mouth shape is nearly identical. In everyday Telugu family speech, these distinctions matter for meaning but produce the same visual signal for a deaf lip-reader.
Coastal–Rayalaseema–Telangana split
- Telugu across three dialect zones is three different lip-reading tasks
- The three major Telugu dialect zones have different vowel qualities, some vocabulary differences, and distinct prosodic patterns. A deaf person who lip-reads Coastal Telugu (Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam) faces a shifted phonological map when a hearing family member from Hyderabad or Kurnool speaks their home variety.
Fast conversational contraction
- Casual Telugu contracts the syllables a lip-reader expects to see
- Telugu casual speech contracts heavily: long verb forms shed syllables at full conversational pace. Word-final syllables are swallowed in fast family conversation, leaving a deaf lip-reader seeing only fragments where they expect complete forms. The compression is natural for hearing speakers and invisible without sound.
Agglutinative suffix blur
- Long Telugu verb forms arrive as a single visual blur at full speed
- Telugu verbs and nouns carry multiple suffixes encoding tense, aspect, and politeness. In fast speech, a complex form is delivered as a single breath group. A lip-reader sees the lips moving rapidly through many positions, but the boundaries between morphemes are invisible — the whole word becomes a single visual blur.
Hyderabad Telugu–Urdu switching
- Hyderabad Telugu switches to Urdu loanwords without any visual signal
- In Hyderabad, Telugu is heavily inflected with Urdu loanwords and spontaneous code-switching. For a deaf lip-reader tracking Telugu, unexpected Urdu lexical items from a different phonological origin are unrecognisable without the auditory cue — suddenly the mouth shape doesn't match any Telugu word they know.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh: high prevalence, limited access
A community-based study in Mahabubnagar District, Telangana found that 4.5% of the population — approximately 1 in 23 people — had disabling hearing impairment, rising to 34.7% among those aged over 65 (PubMed 29782444). Extrapolated across Telangana's population, this represents hundreds of thousands of people navigating daily communication with significant hearing loss, the vast majority without access to audiological care, hearing aids, or specialist support. Andhra Pradesh shows similarly high rates, with districts in both states ranked among the highest for disability prevalence in India's NFHS-5 data.
India has one national sign language, Indian Sign Language (ISL), but penetration into Telugu-speaking communities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana is limited outside Hyderabad and a few other major cities. For the majority of deaf and hard of hearing Telugu speakers — in smaller towns, in coastal fishing communities, in rural Rayalaseema — communication with hearing family members depends entirely on informal strategies: gesture, writing, or the hearing person's willingness to repeat and simplify. There is no formal support structure for daily family communication, and the adjustment burden sits entirely on the person who hears least.
WHO estimates that India accounts for a disproportionate share of the global burden of hearing loss, with over 63 million people experiencing significant auditory impairment (GBD 2019, PMC7960691). In households where a deaf or hard of hearing family member shares meals and daily life with hearing relatives who speak Telugu, the gap is structural — it does not improve without a tool that can bridge it. Captio AI captions natural Telugu speech in real time, at a Hyderabad dinner table or across a house in a coastal Andhra town, so that a deaf family member reads what their hearing relatives are actually saying.
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
"Coastal Telugu is fast and the retroflex sounds blur into each other. I was catching the general topic, not the actual sentences. Captio AI reads what my husband says word for word and I follow the full conversation now."
"Hyderabad Telugu has Urdu words all through it. I was lost whenever a word switched. Captio AI handles both Telugu and the Urdu loanwords in the same sentence and I follow my colleagues' conversations without interrupting to ask what was said."
"Rayalaseema Telugu sounds different from what I hear on television. My family's accent was always a challenge. Captio AI reads their speech accurately — their dialect, their pace — and I finally follow the table at family meals."
"My grandchildren speak Telugu with English everywhere. I could not follow either one reliably. Captio AI captions their fast mixed speech as they speak and I understand them without needing them to slow down for me."
"Coastal Telugu is fast and the retroflex sounds blur into each other. I was catching the general topic, not the actual sentences. Captio AI reads what my husband says word for word and I follow the full conversation now."
"Hyderabad Telugu has Urdu words all through it. I was lost whenever a word switched. Captio AI handles both Telugu and the Urdu loanwords in the same sentence and I follow my colleagues' conversations without interrupting to ask what was said."
"Rayalaseema Telugu sounds different from what I hear on television. My family's accent was always a challenge. Captio AI reads their speech accurately — their dialect, their pace — and I finally follow the table at family meals."
"My grandchildren speak Telugu with English everywhere. I could not follow either one reliably. Captio AI captions their fast mixed speech as they speak and I understand them without needing them to slow down for me."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Make every conversation work — for both sides in Telugu.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store