German live captions and productivity tool for everyday conversations
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
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Everything you need to follow German everyday conversations
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing German speakers.
Captions any conversation in real time
- Word by word, as the person speaks
- Works in noisy places — counters, streets, busy rooms
- Any accent, any pace
- No lip reading needed
Everyday conversations in any language
- Translates as they speak, not after
- Each person speaks their own language
- Handles mid-sentence switches
- 60+ languages, no setup
Save any conversation for later
- Record and get the full transcript
- Organized by speaker
- Read, copy, search, share
- Any language, any audio
Key points from any exchange
- Important points extracted automatically
- Works on any saved transcript
- Organized into clear sections
- Nothing gets missed
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
Apotheke counter, Supermarkt checkout, Postamt window, Bürgeramt desk. Staff speak at their own pace and expect you to follow. Captio AI shows what they said before the moment passes.
Sunday family lunch, Stammtisch at a local Kneipe, birthday dinner. Fast overlapping German, dialects varying by region and generation. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking.
Asking for directions in the city, chatting with a neighbour in the Treppenhaus, meeting someone at the weekly Markt. People who speak at full conversational pace. Captio AI captions anyone near you.
Kaffeepause chat, a quick question in the Büro corridor, catch-up before the meeting starts. The moments German workplaces run on. Captio AI keeps you in those conversations.
Arztpraxis, Finanzamt, Standesamt, bank branch. Formal vocabulary, formal tone, no repeat expected. Captio AI transcribes everything said so you can follow and respond.
U-Bahn and S-Bahn announcements, bus driver, asking at a Bahnhof, taxi conversation. Situations where you need to understand the first time. Captio AI covers you anywhere on the move.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
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Built for conversations that don't wait
Captions as they speak, not after
Captio AI shows each word as it is spoken. You read what the person is saying while they are still saying it — not after they have finished and moved on.
No lip reading needed
You do not need to face the speaker or position yourself to see their mouth. Captio AI picks up speech from any direction — across a counter, at a table, in a busy street.
Works through background noise
Restaurants, pharmacies, busy streets, crowded waiting rooms. Captio AI separates speech from background noise so captions stay accurate where everyday conversations actually happen.
Follows any conversation
One person or six. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking at any moment — so you follow the thread at a dinner table or keep up with a counter exchange without losing track.
Any accent, any pace
People do not slow down or enunciate for you. Captio AI handles fast talkers, regional accents, and casual speech — the way people actually talk in real life.
Any language, no setup
When someone speaks a language you do not know, switch to Live Translator. They speak their language — you read in yours. No configuration needed. Works in 60+ languages.
Why German is hard to understand
Compound words
- German everyday speech is built from long agglutinated words with no lip anchors
- German compounds long words into single units — 'Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft' is an extreme example, but everyday speech is full of medium-length compounds that move quickly on the lips. At conversational pace, these words blur into long visual streams with no clear breaks for a lip reader to latch onto.
Dialect gap
- Bavarian, Saxon, and Swiss German are not the same language as Hochdeutsch
- Standard German (Hochdeutsch) is what deaf people learn in school and what appears in subtitles. Bavarian, Saxon, Cologne Kölsch, and Swiss German are genuinely different spoken varieties. A deaf person calibrated to northern German speech will miss large portions of a Bavarian family gathering or a Viennese café conversation.
Behördendeutsch
- Official and bureaucratic German is dense even for hearing people
- German government offices, banks, and formal settings use Behördendeutsch — a register of long sentences, passive constructions, and formal vocabulary that even hearing Germans find opaque. For a deaf person relying on captions, the density of this register requires real-time text to be useful at all.
Interpreter shortage
- 200,000 DGS users, only 500 interpreters
- German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS) has approximately 200,000 users but only around 500 certified interpreters nationwide. For informal daily settings — the bakery, the beer garden, the family kitchen — there is no interpreter and no expectation of one.
Healthcare avoidance
- Deaf patients in Germany actively avoid healthcare due to communication barriers
- A 2023 study published in BMC Public Health found that deaf and hard of hearing patients in Germany are significantly unsatisfied with healthcare and actively avoid it due to communication barriers. If the healthcare system fails this badly, informal everyday settings have no chance of performing better.
Download for free
Download on theApp Store11 million people. Only 500 interpreters for the whole of German daily life.
Germany has approximately 11.1 million adults with hearing impairment meeting WHO criteria — 16.2% of the adult population — according to the Gutenberg Health Study, one of the most comprehensive German epidemiological studies on the topic. Around 235,000 are classified as deaf or severely hard of hearing. For deaf people navigating German daily life, exclusion is embedded in ordinary settings: the bakery counter where the cashier doesn't slow down, the Biergarten where the conversation moves too fast to follow, the government office where Behördendeutsch is delivered in dense formal sentences that assume perfect hearing.
German Sign Language (DGS) has approximately 200,000 users but only around 500 certified interpreters nationwide — a ratio that makes interpreter access in daily informal settings effectively impossible. A 2023 study in BMC Public Health found that deaf and hard of hearing patients in Germany are significantly unsatisfied with German healthcare and actively avoid it due to communication barriers, even though formal healthcare has more accessibility infrastructure than daily informal life. The bakery, the supermarket, the Biergarten, and the family kitchen have no interpreter and no obligation to provide one.
Hearing loss prevalence in Germany is rising, driven by an ageing population — Germany is one of Europe's oldest societies — and by noise exposure in urban environments. The EU's 2024 EHIMA report on hearing loss in Europe confirms that Germany, like its neighbours, is facing growing unmet need in hearing care. The infrastructure to support deaf people in ordinary German daily life is not scaling to match. Captio AI captions German speech in real time — including Bavarian, Saxon, and Swiss German regional varieties — so the bakery counter, the Biergarten, and the government office are no longer settings you have to navigate alone.
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
"Bavarian dialect and standard German are completely different on the lips. My interpreter works formal settings only. Captio AI handles the Biergarten and the Bäckerei. That is where life actually happens."
"Government offices in Germany speak very fast Behördendeutsch. Captio AI transcribes every sentence in real time. I stopped needing someone to come with me."
"Viennese German has its own rhythm and vocabulary. Most tools train on standard German. Captio AI handles the Austrian accent accurately. Family gatherings in Vienna are genuinely different now."
"Swiss German is a completely different spoken language from Hochdeutsch. Captio AI handles it. Running errands in Zurich is something I do alone now."
"Bavarian dialect and standard German are completely different on the lips. My interpreter works formal settings only. Captio AI handles the Biergarten and the Bäckerei. That is where life actually happens."
"Government offices in Germany speak very fast Behördendeutsch. Captio AI transcribes every sentence in real time. I stopped needing someone to come with me."
"Viennese German has its own rhythm and vocabulary. Most tools train on standard German. Captio AI handles the Austrian accent accurately. Family gatherings in Vienna are genuinely different now."
"Swiss German is a completely different spoken language from Hochdeutsch. Captio AI handles it. Running errands in Zurich is something I do alone now."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Follow any conversation in German.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store