Dutch live captions and productivity tool for traveling
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
Download for free
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Everything you need to follow Dutch traveling
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Dutch speakers.
Captions any spoken exchange, anywhere
- Airport staff, hotel receptionists, taxi drivers
- Real time, word by word, as they speak
- Works through travel noise and accents
- No setup — open the app and point it
No language barrier, anywhere in the world
- They speak their language — you read in yours
- 60+ languages, no manual switching
- For customs, hotels, restaurants, and local transport
- Translates in real time as they speak
Transcribe any recorded content
- Record a tour guide, a briefing, an important exchange
- Upload and get the full transcript to review
- Any language, any format
- Useful for travel information you want in writing
Key travel information extracted
- Instructions, directions, and key details from any transcript
- Organised into clear sections
- Useful after complex hotel check-ins or guided briefings
- 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.
Gate changes and boarding calls at Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) or Eindhoven Airport come in Dutch and English. Captio AI captions both languages so you catch gate numbers and boarding times — pointed at the PA speaker or a gate agent.
NS Intercity trains announce stops in Dutch. At Amsterdam Centraal, Rotterdam Centraal, or Utrecht Centraal, Captio AI captions the ticket window exchange and platform PA so you find the right platform and train.
A hotel receptionist in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or Bruges explaining check-in details and local tips in Dutch. Place Captio AI on the desk and follow the full conversation without asking for anything repeated.
Asking for directions near Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum or navigating Rotterdam's tram network. Fast Dutch from locals and GVB tram drivers — Captio AI captions their reply so you find your way.
Dutch border control and customs at Schiphol or the Hoek van Holland ferry terminal speak quickly in formal Dutch and English. Captio AI captions every question so you respond accurately.
A guide at the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House, or Keukenhof Gardens delivering Dutch commentary on Golden Age art and Dutch history. Captio AI captions in real time so you follow every detail.
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 a world that announces everything by sound
Captions any spoken exchange in real time
Airport staff, hotel receptionists, taxi drivers, tour guides. Hold the phone toward whoever is speaking and read the captions — in any setting, in any country.
60+ languages — no language barrier
Live Translator captions and translates in real time. They speak their language — you read in yours. For every country, every language, no manual setup between interactions.
Works anywhere with a data connection
Wi-Fi or mobile data. A local SIM or roaming plan keeps Captio AI running in any country — airports, hotels, rural areas, and everywhere in between.
Handles travel environments
Noisy airports, busy stations, echoing hotel lobbies. Captio AI is built for real environments — not quiet controlled rooms. It captions through the ambient noise of travel.
Discreet in any public setting
Hold the phone or place it near the speaker. Captio AI runs quietly and draws no attention — useful in customs, immigration, and any formal travel interaction where discretion matters.
Private by default
Travel conversations — customs declarations, hotel bookings, personal exchanges — are never stored or shared. Audio is processed in real time and discarded immediately.
Why Dutch is hard to understand
The Dutch G — velar fricative
- Dutch's iconic /x/ and /ɣ/ are produced at the back of the throat — invisible on the lips
- The Dutch voiced and voiceless velar fricatives — /ɣ/ and /x/ (the notorious 'Dutch G') — are produced at the soft palate or uvula with no lip or jaw movement. These sounds appear throughout Dutch vocabulary including common travel words. At Amsterdam Schiphol or Rotterdam Centraal, an agent or station announcer using the Dutch G produces nothing visible on their face that corresponds to the most distinctive phoneme of the Dutch language.
Flemish-Dutch dialect divide
- Belgian Dutch (Flemish) and Netherlands Dutch differ substantially at every counter
- Standard Dutch (ABN — Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands) differs significantly from Flemish Belgian Dutch in vowel system, prosody, and pace. Antwerp Flemish, Ghent Flemish, and Brussels Flemish each have their own accent profiles. A deaf traveler calibrated to Randstad Dutch (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague) lands at Brussels Airport (BRU) or Bruges railway station and encounters a different phonological landscape from every airline and hotel staff member.
Schwa elision in fast speech
- Dutch reduces unstressed syllables aggressively — words collapse in natural speech
- Dutch reduces unstressed syllables to schwa /ə/ in normal conversation and deletes schwas entirely in very fast speech. Common function words disappear almost completely. At Schiphol International or Amsterdam Centraal, a gate agent or ticket counter person speaking at normal Dutch pace delivers speech where unstressed syllables have compressed to near-silence, and a deaf traveler's preparation from slower resources gives no preview of what actually arrives.
Diphthong variation across dialects
- Dutch diphthongs are realized differently across regions — confusing for lip-readers
- Standard Dutch diphthongs like /ɛi/, /œy/, /ʌu/ are realized very differently in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Belgium. The Randstad accent raises and fronts these diphthongs in ways that differ from what textbooks describe. A deaf traveler at a hotel in The Hague or a train counter in Utrecht lip-reads vowels that don't match the canonical Dutch vowel chart they prepared from.
Dutch-English code-switching (Dunglish)
- Dutch speakers in cities switch to English mid-sentence without visual signal
- Dutch urban professionals — particularly hotel staff, Schiphol employees, and tour guides in Amsterdam — switch between Dutch and English within sentences (informally called Dunglish). A deaf traveler reading Dutch lip-shapes at an Amsterdam hotel check-in or a Schiphol gate desk must suddenly switch to English phoneme mappings mid-sentence — with no transition signal visible on the speaker's face.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss and travel accessibility in the Netherlands
The Netherlands has a well-documented hearing loss burden. EuroTrak surveys — the most comprehensive European hearing health data series — find that the Netherlands sits among the mid-range European countries for self-reported hearing loss, at approximately 16–17% of the adult population. Across Europe, the EHIMA (2024) analysis reports that 36% of people with self-reported hearing loss across 30 countries have adopted hearing aids — leaving the majority navigating daily life without amplification. In the Netherlands specifically, earlier estimates placed the number of people with severe hearing loss at approximately 11,400 in a population of 15.5 million, but this figure significantly undercounts the full spectrum of hearing difficulty.
The Netherlands' travel infrastructure — including Schiphol (the fourth busiest airport in Europe, handling over 71 million passengers in 2023), the NS rail network serving 400 stations, and the GVB tram and metro networks in Amsterdam — communicates critical information through spoken Dutch PA announcements. Real-time captioning is not standard at Dutch stations or airports. Amsterdam's major tourist attractions — the Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank House, Keukenhof — offer audio guides and written materials but not real-time captioning for guided tours. For a deaf or hard of hearing traveler, Schiphol's multi-terminal complexity and frequent gate changes are navigated through audio-only announcements.
Captio AI captions Dutch in real time — whether a gate announcement at Schiphol, an NS station platform change at Utrecht Centraal, or a guide at the Rijksmuseum — so a deaf traveler in the Netherlands follows every instruction and announcement without depending on audio infrastructure built without them in mind.
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
"Schiphol gate changes come in Dutch first, then English, and the PA echo is bad. I pointed Captio AI at the speaker and the gate number appeared before half the waiting area had noticed the announcement. First time I've beaten hearing passengers to a gate change."
"Flemish Dutch at Bruges station is very different from Randstad Dutch and most tools fail me there. Captio AI handled the NS ticket counter agent at Rotterdam Centraal and the NMBS agent in Bruges. Both accurate."
"The train from Rotterdam Centraal to Schiphol has fast Dutch PA announcements. I held Captio AI at the speaker for each station and read every announcement correctly. I've stopped standing by the door to watch the platform signs."
"The guide at the Rijksmuseum gave the Rembrandt overview in Dutch. Captio AI captioned the whole thing — the composition of The Night Watch, the guild history, the pigments. I came out knowing more than the hearing tourists next to me."
"Schiphol gate changes come in Dutch first, then English, and the PA echo is bad. I pointed Captio AI at the speaker and the gate number appeared before half the waiting area had noticed the announcement. First time I've beaten hearing passengers to a gate change."
"Flemish Dutch at Bruges station is very different from Randstad Dutch and most tools fail me there. Captio AI handled the NS ticket counter agent at Rotterdam Centraal and the NMBS agent in Bruges. Both accurate."
"The train from Rotterdam Centraal to Schiphol has fast Dutch PA announcements. I held Captio AI at the speaker for each station and read every announcement correctly. I've stopped standing by the door to watch the platform signs."
"The guide at the Rijksmuseum gave the Rembrandt overview in Dutch. Captio AI captioned the whole thing — the composition of The Night Watch, the guild history, the pigments. I came out knowing more than the hearing tourists next to me."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Navigate confidently in Dutch.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store