Turn any YouTube video into a dictation lesson
We're not testing your English knowledge — we're training your ear. Paste a link: the captions become sentences, the difficulty gets graded, and you practice with the same word-by-word feedback as every official course. Every miss is saved for review — the video stops being something you watched and becomes something you keep.
Your first video lesson is free · no card needed
How it works
Paste a YouTube link
Any video with English captions. A timestamp in the link (&t=7m53s) starts your lesson right there.
Pick a stretch
Chapters are one-click, or drag a 5–20 minute range. Long videos import in stretches that chain together.
Type what you hear
The video plays sentence by sentence — real voices, real speed, 0.75× when you need it. Every word you miss is highlighted and saved to your mistakes notebook.
Watching with subtitles isn't listening practice
Subtitles let your eyes do the work. Dictation makes your ears do it — and shows you exactly what they missed.
| Re-watching YouTube | Subtitle apps | Dictation Trainer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word-by-word correction | — | — | ✓ |
| Mistakes notebook + review | — | — | ✓ |
| CEFR difficulty estimate | — | — | ✓ A2–B2+ |
| Spoiler-proof player | captions visible | captions visible | ✓ hidden until you answer |
| Sentence-by-sentence replay | manual scrubbing | ✓ | ✓ + 0.75× slow-down |
| Structured courses to fall back on | — | — | ✓ A1–B2 ladder |
What kind of videos work best
🎙 Clear speech beats music
Interviews, vlogs, TED talks, news. The video needs English captions — that's what we split into sentences. Music videos don't work.
⏱ 5 minutes is a real lesson
Conversational English runs 14–20 sentences per minute — a 5-minute stretch is a full sitting. A lesson holds up to 120 sentences and tells you exactly where it stops.
📊 Check the speed badge
Every import gets a difficulty estimate from its words-per-minute and vocabulary. Too fast? We'll point you one rung down the official course ladder to warm up.
🔁 Long videos chain in stretches
Finish a stretch and the done screen offers the next one — a 40-minute podcast becomes a week of connected lessons.
No video in mind? Start here
Easy conversations: saying where you’re from (BBC)
Street interviews: summer plans (BBC)
Street interviews: spicy food (BBC)
6 Minute English: the art of doing nothing
6 Minute English: following your dreams
TEDx: how to sound smart (and funny)
Hand-picked, level-graded, and verified to work — one click opens the import flow with the video ready.
Free to try, cheap to keep
Your first video lesson is free. After that a lesson costs 200 Echoes — about $0.50 — and Echoes never expire. A free daily check-in tops you up.
Questions people ask
Do you download the video?
Never. The video plays from YouTube's own player, sentence by sentence. We only read the captions to build your lesson — nothing is copied or stored.
Which videos can I use?
Any embeddable YouTube video with English captions — auto-generated captions work too; we restore their punctuation with AI.
Is my lesson public?
No. Video lessons are private to your account.
What if the video is too hard?
Every import gets a CEFR difficulty estimate. If the speech is faster than our official lessons at that level, we say so — and point you to official courses one level down to warm up.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes — the player collapses while you type and the check button stays under your thumb.
How is this different from watching with subtitles or a subtitle app?
Subtitles let your eyes do the listening. Here the sentence stays hidden until you've typed it yourself, then it's checked word by word — misheard, misspelled and missed words are highlighted and saved to your mistakes notebook for review. Watching tells you what was said; typing it back proves what you actually heard, and the review loop makes it stick.
Your favorite video is your next lesson
or start with an official course · A1–B2