YouTube has surprised me many times in the past with unexpected features, even though I use its mobile app and website frequently. But this was a real knockout.
I’m looking to explore more in the kitchen and after a few tedious attempts at foreign cuisine, I decided to look for a full-fledged online tutor.
I found some good channels, but it wasn’t as easy as I expected. I can hardly speak a second language, let alone fluent Japanese or Mandarin.
I had become accustomed to this boring routine and was starting to lose the sense of exploration that got me started in the first place.
Then I discovered a feature that completely changed my experience with the site.
Why subtitles alone are not enough
Maybe you should read a book
As someone who loves foreign cultures, I have never cared about subtitles.
However, it’s not always the best way to experience things, especially if you’re trying to understand cooking tutorials by ear.
The whole thing was frustrating, constantly pausing and replaying to read tiny subtitles, rewinding to see cutting and spice techniques again because I was so focused on the words, and a general lack of context.
In the end, I decided to watch the video and take notes before going to the kitchen, but I still had to read the book and watch it repeatedly to understand the content.
I was just a few tutorials away from giving up and asking Gemini to introduce me to an Asian restaurant in the city, when I found an unexpected solution in the auto-voice.
I experienced it a few weeks ago with a Spanish-language video on Instagram, and even heard that YouTube was planning to implement automatic dubbing. However, I didn’t know that it was already on sale.
I didn’t know there was automatic dubbing.
It’s hidden pretty well
After all, auto-dubbing was rolled out to all creators months before I realized it, and the February 2026 update significantly improved functionality on the viewer side.
There was only one small setting I needed to change to make it happen.
My entire phone is set to English, so the YouTube app[言語]I never thought to check out what the tabs have to offer.
So, as I was looking through the settings menu looking for something to change, I noticed a blank space. Preferred language It’s an option, but I was a little confused.
This is different from the app’s language setting, which was correctly set to English (US), so I figured it was safe to update.
I set my preferred language and didn’t think much about it after that.
If you want to find it yourself, look it up on the YouTube app language Tap Settings, Preferred language. Then select the language in which you want to watch the video, confirm button.
I tried it right away by selecting a video that I had already bookmarked for later viewing. when tapped playI could hear normal American English on all the Asian channels.
It was a real surprise and made me double check if the video was correct. A slight inconsistency in the lip movements told me I was watching an auto-dubbed video.
Better than expected
Amazingly functional dubbing
After the initial excitement, I decided to properly evaluate this feature and see how it compares to subtitles.
The technology runs on Google’s Gemini AI and separates the speaker’s voice and generates a translated, natural-sounding replacement.
The BGM worked so well that it didn’t get cut out, and that was what surprised me the most.
There was some disconnect between the movement of the lips and the words being spoken. If the mouth wasn’t front and center, I might have been fooled.
In some videos, dubbed audio conveys the pitch and energy of the original speaker, but how closely depends largely on the source language.
I also discovered that you can change the audio while the video is playing. It was fascinating to see the audio carry over into multiple languages almost seamlessly.
However, I noticed that this feature is not available for all videos. After doing a little research, I found that creators must opt in to this feature for their content.
Also, YouTube doesn’t yet support all the languages I selected, but it says more languages will be added in the future.
Still, some users were not satisfied with this feature and expressed shock upon hearing an unexpected language, even if it was their native language.
For example, a native German speaker will hear the video with German audio instead of the expected English.
If you don’t like automatic dubbing, please follow the same steps. Preferred language and turn off any languages you don’t want to hear.
You can also manually switch the audio for individual videos, but I don’t think this is convenient for everyone.
Discovered all kinds of new content
I had no idea that YouTube content hadn’t existed for me for years. Now you’ve found tons of cooking channels with thousands of insightful and entertaining videos.
Since I started using this feature, I’ve been eating better, both figuratively and literally.
This feature is free to all viewers, which makes it easy to recommend, and another reason I maintain my YouTube Premium subscription.
