How to Use Cotobara Watch: Learn Japanese from YouTube Videos

Cotobara Watch plays a Japanese video with its Japanese subtitles underneath. Hover any word in the subtitle line to see its reading and meaning, and queue the words you want to learn so they show up in your lessons.

This guide covers how to set it up, how each control works, and some practical tips for using video as immersion.

What you need

• Cotobara Premium. Watch is a Premium feature and is currently in beta.
• A computer for the full experience. Hovering needs a mouse. On a phone you can still tap a word to look it up, but the extension and the bookmark only work on a computer.
• Chrome or Edge (recommended). These browsers can install the Cotobara Chrome extension and can show a translated second subtitle line. Other browsers work with the bookmark or a pasted transcript.

Step 1: Load a video

Open Watch from the menu (under Study on a computer). You have three ways to get a video on screen:

1. Search YouTube. Click Search YouTube and type what you want to watch. Japanese search terms work best. Keep With subtitles only turned on so the results are videos that have subtitles.
2. Paste a link. Copy a YouTube URL, paste it into the YouTube link box, and click Load.
3. Open a video file. Click Video file to play a video stored on your computer.

Some YouTube videos can't be played outside youtube.com. If that happens, Watch tells you; pick another video.

Step 2: Add the subtitles

Watch needs a Japanese subtitle track to work with. There are four ways to get one.

Option A: The Chrome extension (easiest)

Install the Cotobara Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store (the Install button is on the Watch page). With it installed, a YouTube video's subtitles load automatically. Press play and they appear a moment later.

• If the video has Japanese subtitles, those are used.
• If it only has subtitles in another language, YouTube's auto-translate turns them into Japanese. The source label under the video says (auto-translated) when this happens. Machine-translated subtitles can be wrong, so prefer videos with real Japanese subtitles.
• If the video has no subtitles at all, you'll need a subtitle file instead.

Option B: The Cotobara Watch bookmark

If you can't install the extension (for example, you use Firefox or Safari), use the bookmark:

1. Drag the Cotobara Watch button on the Watch page to your bookmarks bar. (In Chrome or Edge, first click No extension? Use the Cotobara Watch bookmark instead to show it.) If the bar is hidden, press Ctrl+Shift+B (⌘+Shift+B on a Mac).
2. Open a Japanese video on youtube.com.
3. Click Cotobara Watch in your bookmarks. The video opens in Cotobara with its Japanese subtitles.

Option C: Paste the transcript

1. Open the video on youtube.com, on a computer.
2. Under the video, click …more in the description, then Show transcript.
3. At the bottom of the transcript, set the language to Japanese (日本語).
4. If the lines have no timestamps, open the transcript's ⋮ menu and choose Toggle timestamps.
5. Select all the lines, copy them, then click Paste transcript in Cotobara, paste, and click Load.

The transcript has to be in Japanese and include timestamps, or it won't load.

Option D: A subtitle file

Click Subtitle file and choose an .srt, .vtt or .ass file. This works with YouTube videos and with your own video files.

Subtitles are shown exactly as YouTube or your file has them; Cotobara doesn't edit them.

Step 3: Watch and look up words

Press play. The current line appears under the video, and every word Cotobara recognizes is underlined.

• Hover a word (or tap it on a phone) to see its reading and meaning in a tooltip. The panel beside the video shows more: the JLPT level, the part of speech, the reading in furigana, and, for a conjugated word, tags showing how it was formed (for example te-form or past).
• COULD ALSO BE appears when a word can be split or read more than one way. The split is automatic and can be wrong, so check the alternatives if the first meaning doesn't fit the sentence.
• Words outside the dictionary get a fainter, dashed underline in Chrome and Edge once the browser's translation model is on your device (it downloads when you pick a language under Second subtitles, or click the Download … for the second subtitles (once) button under the line). Hovering them shows a machine translation from your browser, labeled as such. Treat those as a rough guide.
• Between lines, the last line stays on screen, dimmed, so you can still look up a word you just heard.

Useful controls

• Pause while I hover a word. Turn this on and the video pauses while your pointer is on a word, then resumes when you move away. It only resumes a video that it paused itself.
• Sync. If the subtitles run early or late, use − and + to shift them by half a second at a time. This is mostly needed for subtitle files.
• Second subtitles. Shows a translated line under the Japanese. It starts in English; pick another language, or Off to hide it. The translation is done by your browser on your device (Chrome or Edge on a computer only). The first time, the language model downloads once; if it hasn't, click the Download … for the second subtitles (once) button under the line.
• Watch later. Save a video to your watch list.
• Your videos. Opens Continue watching (videos you've started, resumed from where you stopped), your Watch list, and Search YouTube.

Step 4: Keep the words you meet

When you find a word worth learning, click Queue word in the word panel. It's added to your queue and comes up in your next lesson, so you review it with spaced repetition like any other word. Word page opens the word's full entry in the Cotobara dictionary.

You don't need to queue every unknown word. See the tips below for which ones to pick.

Tips for immersion with video

Watching Japanese video trains your listening and shows how words are actually used. A few habits help:

Pick content slightly above your level

You'll learn the most from videos where you understand most of what's said but not all of it. If you're lost in every line, the content is too hard for now; if you understand everything, you're mostly practicing, not learning. For beginners, that usually means slower, clearer speech: vlogs, slice-of-life shows, children's programs, cooking videos, and content made for learners.

Use Japanese subtitles, not English

With English subtitles, you end up reading English and not processing the Japanese. Japanese subtitles let you connect what you hear with what you read. If you want a safety net, turn on Second subtitles, but try to read the Japanese line first and only glance at the translation when you're stuck.

Don't look up everything

Stopping on every unknown word turns a short video into a long dictionary session, which is hard to keep up. A good rule of thumb: look up words that come up more than once, words that block your understanding of the scene, and words you've heard before but can't place. Let the rest go.

Queue only words worth keeping

Each word you add means future reviews, so be selective. Good candidates are words that are common, words you'll likely hear again, and words with a JLPT level close to yours. Rare slang, names, and one-off technical terms usually aren't worth a review slot.

Rewatch

Watching the same video twice is not wasted time. The first watch gets you the story; the second time you'll catch words and grammar you missed. Short clips you've already watched also work well as background listening later.

Be consistent

A little video every day is easier to sustain than a long session once in a while, and it keeps your ear used to Japanese. Continue watching picks up where you left off, so it's easy to fit a few minutes in.

Combine input with study

Immersion and study support each other. Vocabulary study gives you enough known words to follow a video, and video gives those words context so they stick. If videos still feel like noise, spend more time on core vocabulary first and come back later. For more on this, see how to learn Japanese with anime.

Watch for register

A lot of video Japanese is casual, and some of it (anime especially) is exaggerated or gendered in ways people don't use in everyday conversation. It's great for listening, but pair it with study of the polite register you'll actually use with people you don't know well.

Quick troubleshooting

• "Press play and the subtitles load by themselves" but nothing appears. Give it a few seconds after playing. If YouTube still hasn't sent them after about 15 seconds, Watch says so; paste the transcript or load a subtitle file instead.
• "This video has no subtitles on YouTube." Load a subtitle file, or pick a different video. Searching with With subtitles only on avoids this.
• Subtitles are out of time. Use Sync to shift them.
• Second subtitles only offers "Off". It needs Chrome or Edge on a computer.
• A word's meaning doesn't fit. Check COULD ALSO BE in the word panel; the automatic split may have picked the wrong word.