Basque live captions and productivity tool for phone & video calls
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
Everything you need to follow Basque phone & video calls
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Basque speakers.
Follow the call in real time
- Captions appear word by word as the other person speaks
- Works on any call — no app integration required
- Put the call on speaker and point the microphone toward it
- Handles compressed call audio accurately
International and foreign-language calls
- They speak their language — you read in yours
- Translates in real time as they speak
- 60+ languages, no setup
- For family abroad, international business, or travel
Transcribe any call recording
- Record the call and upload for a complete written transcript
- Review instructions, information, and decisions after
- Organised by speaker
- Works on any call recording
Key information extracted from any call
- Important points pulled from any call transcript
- Useful for medical calls, customer service, and work calls
- 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 call home to family in Bilbao, Donostia-San Sebastián, or Bayonne — catching up in Basque at the pace of a family phone call.
A work call with Basque-speaking colleagues or clients — professional Basque (Batua) or the regional dialect of wherever the caller is based.
A callback from an osasun etxea (health centre) in Vitoria-Gasteiz or an apoteki — healthcare calls where catching every detail about treatment or medication matters.
A call from a Basque bank, Iberdrola, or a local government line — automated menus in Basque or Spanish, followed by an agent at full speed.
A call from Basque diaspora in Latin America (where significant Basque communities exist), mixing Basque with Spanish mid-sentence.
A WhatsApp or FaceTime video call with Basque family — the standard platform for the Basque community staying connected across Spain, France, and the diaspora.
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 calls you have been avoiding
Captions as they speak
Words appear on screen word by word while the other person is still talking. You read what they say at the same pace everyone else hears it — no delay, no reconstruction.
Works on any call app
Captio AI does not need to integrate with any platform. Put the call on speaker, point the microphone toward the audio, and read the captions. It works the same way for any app on any device.
No more asking for repeats
Every word is on screen as it is said. If you missed something, glance at the caption rather than interrupting the call — the full sentence is there.
Handles call audio accurately
Compressed phone audio is less clean than in-person speech. Captio AI is built for real-world audio conditions, including the reduced quality of standard phone and VoIP calls.
Any language
For calls with family abroad, international colleagues, or foreign-language customer service. Live Translator captions and translates in real time with no manual setup.
Record and review after
Record any call and upload it to Audio Transcription. Get a full written record of everything said — useful for medical instructions, work decisions, and anything worth having in writing.
Why Basque is hard to understand
Five dialect groups
- Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, and Souletin sound substantially different on the phone
- Basque has five major dialects — Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, Navarrese, Navarrese-Lapurdian, and Souletin — that differ enough that speakers from opposite ends of the dialect range do not always understand each other. The unified written standard (Batua) does not eliminate spoken variation. A call from Bilbao reads differently from one from Mauléon.
Sibilant system
- Up to five sibilants with near-identical lip shapes
- Basque distinguishes up to five sibilant sounds in eastern dialects (Souletin) — laminal, apical, and palatal variants of /s/ and /ts/. All sibilants are produced behind the upper teeth with similar lip shapes. A lip-reader cannot distinguish them visually regardless of the speaker's dialect.
Aspiration variation
- Eastern dialects aspirate stops that western dialects do not
- Some eastern Basque dialects (Zuberoan/Souletin) have aspirated stops where western dialects have plain ones. Aspiration is produced in the throat with no visible lip change. A lip-reader watching the same lip shape hears either an aspirated or unaspirated stop depending on the speaker's origin.
Basque-Spanish/French code-switching
- Spanish or French enters mid-sentence with no signal
- All Basque speakers are bilingual — in Spanish in the Spanish Basque Country and Navarre, in French in Iparralde. Code-switching into Spanish or French happens constantly and seamlessly on phone calls. A lip-reader tracking Basque vowel shapes is suddenly facing Spanish or French phonology, then back again.
Agglutinative suffix stacking
- Multiple suffixes compress into fast unbroken runs
- Basque is a heavily agglutinative language with an ergative-absolutive case system; multiple case, agreement, and tense suffixes stack onto a single stem. In fast speech these compress into long uninterrupted runs with minimal lip shape variation between suffixes, making word segmentation on a phone call very difficult.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss in the Basque Country: a minority language with no sign language recognition
The Spanish Basque Country has a population of 2.2 million, with additional Basque speakers in Navarre and French Iparralde. Applying the national Spanish hearing loss figures — 1,064,000 deaf or hard of hearing across Spain (INE 2008) and around five million with some hearing loss (EuroTrak) — the Basque-speaking deaf community numbers in the tens of thousands. Basque Sign Language (Euskal Zeinu Hizkuntza / Lengua de Signos Vasca) is used within the Basque Country but has no legal recognition under Spanish national law, leaving Basque-speaking deaf people without a guaranteed right to interpreter services.
The French Basque Country (Iparralde) faces an additional layer of exclusion: French law does not recognise Basque Sign Language either, and the Basque-speaking deaf community in France is particularly small and geographically dispersed across three provinces (Labourd, Soule, Basse-Navarre). Phone and video calls in Basque — with family, with health services, with local councils — have no captioning provision in either the Spanish or French system, and interpreter availability is extremely limited outside Bilbao and Donostia.
Captio AI captions every Basque phone call in real time — from a family call in Bizkaian to a health centre callback in standard Batua — so deaf and hard of hearing Basque speakers can follow every word independently.
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
"Basque suffix stacking runs together in fast speech and I couldn't follow phone calls even with hearing aids. Captio AI captions every word in real time and I keep up with Gipuzkoan completely now."
"Work calls from Donostia colleagues use Gipuzkoan dialect while I speak Bizkaian. Before Captio AI I was guessing. Now I read every word as the call happens and contribute to the meeting from the start."
"Calls from my family in Mauléon use Souletin Basque with French mixed in. Captio AI handles both and I follow the whole conversation — not just the parts where they switch to French."
"I call my uncle in Vitoria-Gasteiz on WhatsApp. He speaks fast Basque with Spanish mixed in. Captio AI follows everything and the weekly call is no longer just a voice I can't follow."
"Basque suffix stacking runs together in fast speech and I couldn't follow phone calls even with hearing aids. Captio AI captions every word in real time and I keep up with Gipuzkoan completely now."
"Work calls from Donostia colleagues use Gipuzkoan dialect while I speak Bizkaian. Before Captio AI I was guessing. Now I read every word as the call happens and contribute to the meeting from the start."
"Calls from my family in Mauléon use Souletin Basque with French mixed in. Captio AI handles both and I follow the whole conversation — not just the parts where they switch to French."
"I call my uncle in Vitoria-Gasteiz on WhatsApp. He speaks fast Basque with Spanish mixed in. Captio AI follows everything and the weekly call is no longer just a voice I can't follow."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Follow every call in Basque.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store