BelliedMonkey Translator
Live subtitles & bilingual web
Free
New: Live Subtitles for anything playing on your Mac or iPhone, plus a conversation interpreter. Bilingual web pages, documents and review cards, all in one app.
BelliedMonkey Translator puts two languages on screen wherever you read, watch or talk — and the sentences you actually read come back as review cards.
LIVE SUBTITLES (APP)
Bilingual subtitles for whatever your device is playing. On Mac, the app listens to system audio and shows a floating subtitle bar that stays on top of any app, even full-screen video (macOS 26 or later). On iPhone, play a video or podcast out loud in any app, and a picture-in-picture window scrolls the original and the translation, sentence by sentence. Recognition happens on the device; Live Subtitles need iOS 26 / macOS 26.
CONVERSATION · LIVE INTERPRETER (APP)
Talk across a language gap. Both sides speak freely; each sentence is transcribed, translated and can be read aloud. Speech is recognised on the device, so the audio never leaves it. Requires iOS 26 / macOS 26.
SYSTEM TRANSLATION (IPHONE)
Select text in any app and tap Translate — BelliedMonkey answers with the engine you configured, in a small sheet, without leaving the app. Choose BelliedMonkey once in Settings › Apps › Translate › Default Translate App. Sentences you translate this way can go straight into your review deck. Requires iOS 18.4 or later.
WEB PAGES, SIDE BY SIDE
The Safari extension (also on Chrome and Firefox) keeps every paragraph's original text with the translation right below it. No switching tabs, no losing your place.
VIDEO DUAL SUBTITLES
YouTube, podcasts and web video get sentence-matched dual subtitles. No captions? Turn on AI transcript subtitles.
DOCUMENT TRANSLATION
Open a PDF, Word file or image and read it page by page, original and translation side by side.
LEARN AS YOU READ
Sentences you actually read can become review cards on a forgetting curve — read, listen and write practice, sentence notes and read-aloud. Optional sync lets your phone review what you read on your computer.
YOUR ENGINE, YOUR CHOICE
Bring your own AI service key, or any compatible endpoint.
PRIVACY, SPELLED OUT
Your keys and settings stay on your device. With your own key, text goes straight to the provider you chose and is not stored. Live Subtitles and on-device transcription never record audio. We send anonymous usage events (which features are used, never page content), and you can turn them off in Settings. No ads. The whole app is open source and free to download.
more · Browser extension · Fixed: When a YouTube transcript can't be fetched, the extension no longer retries the same request over and over — repeated requests are exactly what triggers YouTube's transcript blocking, which takes down even the native captions that still worked. At most 3 requests per video now, with a clear "subtitles unavailable" instead of a broken pipeline.
· App & browser extension · Fixed: When the network keeps timing out, translation stops by itself after 5 consecutive timeouts instead of retrying forever — tap "Retry" to resume. No more endless spinning.
· App (iPhone / iPad / Mac) · New: The first screen asks what you came for — "read web pages", "listen", or "both" — and picks the path to match; if you only want listening, it no longer pushes you toward the extension.
· App (iPhone / iPad) · Fixed: The "open the extension in Safari" banner no longer keeps coming back — one tap counts as asked; and an extension you already set up is no longer treated as missing just because it hasn't captured sentences yet.
· App & browser extension · Improved: Review opens without signing in; finishing a session ends more clearly (one graded card completes it); the hardly-used "check page" link is gone.
· App & browser extension · Internal: The entire UI layer now runs on React — same behavior, same look — so future interface work moves faster.
1.18.0 6d ago
· App (iPhone / iPad / Mac) · Fixed: After you set the interface language, the home screen — product name, sign-in card, section headings — stayed in the old language. It now follows your choice from launch, and changing it takes effect right away.
· App (iPhone / iPad / Mac) · Improved: “Set this up later” on the onboarding screen is a text link again rather than something that looks like a primary button; the review streak moved to a new storage key and your existing days are merged in, so no day is lost.
1.16.1 Sep 25
· New: Review now counts showing up — five cards make a group, finishing one is a real stopping point, and days with nothing due still count. You can see how many days in a row you have come back.
· Improved: The first screen says one thing — you pick the model that translates. If you only want web page translation, there is a direct path right there.
· Improved: “Sentence notes” in Settings is now “Translation & sentence notes” — it is the engine every translation in the app uses, and the wording finally says so.
· New: One-key setup has a “Custom” option — your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint can be set up from that card too.
1.16.0 Sep 24
· New: A shorter first-run guide — sign-in moves up to the second screen, signing in sets up free credit automatically, then you translate and hear a sentence right there; turning on the browser extension comes last.
· New: “Set this up later” now means later, not never — next time, a “Finish setting up” card on the home screen picks up where you left off.
· New: Tapped “I've turned it on” but the extension isn’t actually on? Bring the home-screen tip back from Settings › Features › Safari extension.
· Improved: An endpoint with only a host name, or a missing key for a built-in provider, is pointed out as soon as you leave the field or tap Test — instead of sending a request and showing a cryptic error.
1.15.0 Sep 22
· New: System translation — select text in any app, tap “Translate,” and it goes to the engine you configured, never through our servers. First choose BelliedMonkey in Settings › Apps › Translate › Default Translate App. Requires iOS 18.4 or later.
· New: After you set up an engine, it is tested right there and the result is shown — it only says “Ready” once the test passes, and names the item that failed if one does.
· New: A card on the home screen walks you through making BelliedMonkey your default translate app.
· New: Discord community link, under “Discuss.”
· Fixed: Conversation · Live interpreting no longer goes silent after switching between headphones and speaker (requires iOS 26).
1.14.0 Sep 21
· New: “Translate into” setting — choose the target language in the app; document translation and other features use it. It follows the interface language by default.
· Fixed: YouTube pre-roll ads no longer use up the subtitle attempts, so subtitles appear normally once the ad ends.
· Fixed: turning on subtitle translation before a YouTube video starts playing no longer gets stuck on “Subtitles unavailable”; subtitles appear normally once playback begins.
1.13.1 Sep 20
· On-device speech: the offline model's download address is now served by our server, with a backup address used automatically when the default is unreachable.
· Conversation · live interpreter: the first words of English sentences are no longer dropped; starting again right after ending no longer occasionally stalls.
· Wording: hints now point to the renamed “Read-aloud” settings section; when the browser has no voices at all, it says so plainly.
1.12.1 Sep 18
· Settings reorganized into four sections by purpose: Engines & keys · Features · Account & data · About. Each feature now shows which engines it depends on and whether they are set up, with a one-tap jump to fix it.
· Conversation · live interpreter and Live Subtitles now always use on-device recognition, so audio never leaves your device. These two need iOS 26 / macOS 26.
· The offline voice model for on-device speech has a visible download button with progress; conversation languages list only what this device supports and show whether the recognition language pack is installed.
· Fix: Settings can be opened without signing in.
1.12.0 Sep 17
· Live Subtitles: bilingual subtitles for whatever your device is playing. On Mac, a floating subtitle bar over any app and full-screen video (macOS 14.4 or later); on iPhone, a picture-in-picture window over any app.
· Conversation · live interpreter: on iOS 26 and macOS 26 you can choose on-device transcription and speech, so the audio stays on your device.
· The app now requires iOS 16.4 or macOS 13.3.
· Fixes: podcast pages no longer get stuck on "Loading subtitles…"; the "AI transcript subtitles" button no longer flickers while subtitles load; review cards with an unknown language now get one.
1.11.0 Sep 17
· New "Document translation": upload a PDF, Word (.docx), plain text, or an image and read it page by page, original and translation side by side. Only the page you open is translated, with bounded concurrency — never the whole document at once, never the whole budget at once.
· Scans and images are recognized by the multimodal engine you configured, then translated.
· Any translated line can go into review as language-learning material; the source manager groups them by document and lets you delete a whole file.
1.10.0 Sep 12
· The popup now has a "Live transcription + translation" row that starts with one tap whenever the page has a video or audio element (players inside web components included); when the player lives in an embedded frame it says so and offers a way in. The in-overlay entry no longer waits 15 seconds.
· On Safari, starting from the popup shows a "Tap to start" button on the page — one more tap and capture begins (Safari only captures audio after a tap on the page itself).
· One-key setup gains "Live transcription (optional)": when the platform has no live interface, add one key from a provider that does; engines with a live interface are marked "· live" in the transcription list.
1.9.2 Sep 11
· New free allowance: sign in to claim a small allowance we provide — enough to translate a few hundred pages, usable for translation, read-aloud, and transcription. When it runs out, add your own API key or join the community. Prefer not to sign in? Nothing changes — bring your own key or use the free Google engine.
· Fix: on the setup screen, tapping “Continue” right after pasting a key could drop the key in some cases; it now saves it before moving on.
· Secondary text in light mode is a touch more legible.
1.9.0 Sep 10
Two new things:
· Podcasts and videos with no subtitles can now get bilingual subtitles. Tap "AI transcript subtitles" where it says subtitles are unavailable, and the audio goes to the transcription engine you configured (live streams show word-by-word on the video, with a full-sentence history beside it).
· New in the app: "Conversation · live interpreter". They speak, you read Chinese; hold "I'll talk" to speak Chinese and show the translation — read aloud too. Keeps listening while locked; finished sentences go into review.
The app's home screen is redesigned around one card: what's due today.
Privacy: audio goes only to the transcription endpoint you configured — our servers never touch it. No recording is kept, only text.
1.8.0 Sep 8
Three fixes:
· In the app, once you set up a speech engine, Podcast Mode and the card's "Listen" button now appear right away — no relaunch needed.
· The app's review screen no longer shows a "Continue in the app" button (that one belongs to the browser extension).
· Links and light grey text that were hard to read in Dark Mode (for example "Get a key" in Settings) are now legible; light-mode buttons and secondary text are a shade darker too.
The 1.7.17 fix is still here: your API key no longer disappears after one-tap setup.
1.7.18 Sep 7
The big one: **no password to remember, no code to wait for.**
· Sign in with Apple or Google, in one tap. Until now the only way in was an emailed
six-digit code — leave the app, find the mail, copy the digits back. Email still
works if you would rather not use a third-party account.
· Rebuilt first-run setup. One API key now configures translation, read-aloud and
transcription together, and it tests itself right there — you find out it works
before your first page, not after.
· Sentences you actually stop and finish reading turn into review cards, and capture
is on from the start (scrolling past does not count).
· If you sign in as a different account while this device still holds another
account's material, it now says so — nothing was lost; sign back in and it returns.
· Keyboard shortcuts and inline code in a paragraph (Super + Return, for example) no
longer vanish from the translation.
1.7.13 Sep 3
Podcast mode now works like a music app:
· Playback keeps going when you leave the app, lock the phone, or switch away —
card after card, without stopping.
· The Lock Screen shows the card being read: the sentence, its translation, and —
while the analysis plays — three lines (vocabulary / phrases / grammar) that
light up one at a time as they are spoken.
· The Dynamic Island shows your progress; press and hold to see the full sentence
and translation.
· Play/pause and next work from the Lock Screen, your car and your headphones.
"Previous" repeats the current card from the top.
· Playback resumes by itself after a phone call ends.
Also: the screen no longer dims while podcast mode is in front. To keep seeing the
card after you lock the phone, turn on Always-On Display (Settings → Display &
Brightness → Always On).
Note: this version changes how the analysis is split for speech, so previously
downloaded analysis audio needs to be preloaded once more for fully offline playback.
1.6.7 Aug 26
Podcast mode can now be taken offline. Tap Preload before you set out and the speech,
sentence notes and translations for today's deck are downloaded to your device, so a
whole session plays with no network at all.
The first tap only prices it — it shows how many cards and how many billed calls, and
spends nothing. You decide, then tap again.
· Cards start faster. Everything a card needs is now requested at once instead of one
piece at a time, so the silence between sentences is gone.
· Cards captured without a translation can be given one, using the engine you already
configured.
· When the speech engine cannot be reached, it now says so and stops — instead of
skipping through the whole deck in silence and reporting that the round is finished.
· Stop now takes effect promptly during a preload.
1.6.5 Aug 24
Reasoning models now translate long passages reliably. Some of them used to return a
successful response with no text in it — the paragraph just stayed blank, with no error
to explain why. Requests now carry only the fields each endpoint is known to accept,
which fixed that and cut a long paragraph from about 15 seconds to 3.
· Advanced settings accept your own request parameters, so a private or corporate
endpoint can be tuned without waiting for us to add it.
· More engines to choose from — each one measured against its real endpoint rather
than its documentation.
· An engine whose default model had been retired no longer fails the moment you pick it.
· Fixed a few interface strings that showed their formatting marks verbatim.
1.6.4 Aug 22
1.5.1 — Meet the BelliedMonkey
A full visual redesign:
• New mascot icon and in-page floating button — a pot-bellied monkey carrying the translation
• Warm terracotta & sage palette across every surface (popup, settings, review, app)
• Translations default to a calmer sage green; your custom color is untouched, old defaults migrate once automatically
Learning improvements:
• Review cards are now captured per sentence — short enough to actually remember; a one-tap action in settings splits your existing long cards
• Translation, learning and privacy model unchanged
1.5.1 Aug 15
1.5.0 — Listen, speak, read, write: every sentence, every skill
The learning module now trains all four skills:
• New exercises: translation multiple-choice, blind-listen word picking, read-aloud scoring, AI comprehension questions
• Each review automatically rotates to your least-recently-verified skill — a sentence counts as learned only while all four stay fresh
• Read-aloud scoring: your recording goes only to the transcription endpoint you configure, and is discarded once the transcript returns — it never touches a server of ours. No endpoint configured, no speaking exercise.
• Optional AI-generated questions use your own API key — one call per card, cached forever
• Every new exercise has a zero-cost local variant — fully usable with no API configured at all
1.5.0 Aug 14
BelliedMonkey Translator now leads with its learning loop: the foreign pages and videos you translate can come back as review cards to practice later — read, listen and write, with sentence notes and read-aloud. This update refreshes the store description, screenshots, and adds an App Preview. Thanks for using BelliedMonkey Translator!
1.4.2 Aug 12
1.4.1 — Learning & multi-device sync debut
• Memory layer: sentences you actually read become review cards on a forgetting curve (read/listen/write tiers, free practice, sentence notes, TTS) — all local, off by default
• Optional multi-device sync: a free email account lets your phone review what you read on your computer; without signing in everything stays local
• Source governance: delete or block learning material by domain/URL (deletions sync to all devices), learning-language whitelist
• Sentence notes: pick a dedicated chat engine independent of your translation engine; clearer errors and bigger budget for thinking models
• Upgrades no longer lose state: settings & sign-in persist, corpus auto-backup
• Interaction hardening: controls disable while work is in flight — no double charges
• Table/Wikipedia layout fixes, first-run onboarding, many stability fixes
• Privacy policy updated to spell out exactly what sync stores and how to delete it — belliedmonkey.cc/privacy.html
1.4.1 Aug 10
· Fixed: dual subtitles for video and podcasts ignored your chosen target
language and always translated to Simplified Chinese. They now follow your
setting.
· Internal translation-engine improvements that avoid unnecessary requests.
1.2.0 Jul 29
· Browser extension · Fixed: When a YouTube transcript can't be fetched, the extension no longer retries the same request over and over — repeated requests are exactly what triggers YouTube's transcript blocking, which takes down even the native captions that still worked. At most 3 requests per video now, with a clear "subtitles unavailable" instead of a broken pipeline.
· App & browser extension · Fixed: When the network keeps timing out, translation stops by itself after 5 consecutive timeouts instead of retrying forever — tap "Retry" to resume. No more endless spinning.
· App (iPhone / iPad / Mac) · New: The first screen asks what you came for — "read web pages", "listen", or "both" — and picks the path to match; if you only want listening, it no longer pushes you toward the extension.
· App (iPhone / iPad) · Fixed: The "open the extension in Safari" banner no longer keeps coming back — one tap counts as asked; and an extension you already set up is no longer treated as missing just because it hasn't captured sentences yet.
· App & browser extension · Improved: Review opens without signing in; finishing a session ends more clearly (one graded card completes it); the hardly-used "check page" link is gone.
· App & browser extension · Internal: The entire UI layer now runs on React — same behavior, same look — so future interface work moves faster.
more Version 1.18.0 6d ago
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