Playto: Learn Languages Through Games

Learn languages through the games you love. Playto reads the on-screen text of any PC game with local AI and shows the meaning right there as a translation overlay — JRPGs, visual novels, strategy games, anything with text on screen.

There's no fiddly setup that gets between you and the game. Pick how it reads to fit how you play: keep a fixed region in view, follow your mouse, read the whole screen, or show a translation only when you ask. Save the words and sentences you care about to your Word Book, and the ones you register quickly become study material — flashcards and more — that deepen your grasp of the game. This is immersion learning: play with Playto, and the words you run into again and again start to make sense without stopping to look them up.

Translate any spot you point at — dialogue or UI

Cursor-follow mode reads the text wherever you point your mouse — dialogue, menus, item descriptions. Fixed-region mode watches a set area such as subtitles or a status bar. Window mode (beta) translates the whole screen in the background and shows the overlay only when you want it. Whatever the game, you read any spot you like — not just subtitles. Captured text appears as an overlay with the original and its meaning, without pausing the game.

Fits your screen — and your taste

Choose where the overlay lives: on the original text, lined up in a bottom bar, or anywhere you place it. Tune background opacity, font size and difficult-word highlights until it blends into the game. Watch several spots at once with multiple capture regions — dialogue, name plates and quest logs each get their own translation.

Local AI, arranged your way: it works out of the box with recommended defaults, and you can go further — pick from bundled models such as Gemma and Qwen, keep a lightweight model on translation so your game never slows down, and let a larger model handle word and sentence explanations. In the translation log, words carry difficulty badges (JLPT N5–N1 for Japanese, CEFR A2–C2 for other languages) so you can tell at a glance which ones deserve your attention.

After playing, grow your Word Book

When you stop playing, a session summary lets you look back over the text you met today. Nothing is saved automatically — only the words and sentences you choose to keep enter your Word Book. So your Word Book becomes a learning record you selected yourself.

Keep the scenes you played, in an album

The screen as you saw it, the original text, and its meaning. Look back after you play, and keep the scenes in your album.

Make it stick with review and quizzes

Saved items go into SRS (spaced repetition) timed to the forgetting curve, and 8 quiz modes turn them into lasting memory. The more you play, the more your own dictionary grows — as wide as the games you've played.

From reading the screen to logging every line

Playto's work goes well beyond the translation itself. Playto reads the screen three ways, and you pick which one fits the game. Text runs OCR alone — the fastest and lightest. Text+ runs OCR with AI vision behind it, and applies your glossary and context. Image hands the whole screen to a vision model that reads the picture itself: stylized fonts, brush calligraphy, vertical Japanese text, and lettering painted into a texture are read this way — and it picks up who is speaking and adjusts the tone to the scene. Playto then sorts what it read into dialogue, menus, and item descriptions and breaks it into units a language model can translate cleanly. The meanings are produced by a local LLM running on your own PC — you choose which model to run, and you can change it whenever you like. And every translation that appears on screen is kept in a log you can read back after you play. A per-game glossary pins character names and terms the way you want them.

Game Audio (Beta)

Playto can now listen to the game itself. Voice lines are transcribed while you play, translated, and collected in their own log — tap any word for a dictionary lookup, or save a line to your Sentences with its original audio clip attached.

Works per-game: only the game's own audio is captured, never your mic, music apps, or voice chat.

Currently verified with Japanese and English game audio. Other languages may work — let us know how it goes. Available in the paid edition on Windows 10 (2004) or later.

Playto Cloud (Beta)

Prefer not to wait for the translation model to download — or running one isn't an option on your PC? Playto Cloud translates in the cloud instead. Opt in and start translating right away, while the local model keeps downloading in the background. Free trial credits are currently included.

Cloud translation is optional and off by default. Playto stays local-first — the cloud receives only what's needed to translate; see our privacy policy for details.

Key features

• Real-time translation overlay — Reads on-screen text and shows the original together with its meaning, without pausing the game and without Alt-Tab.
• Capture modes — Cursor-follow works like a mouse tooltip translator, reading wherever you point — dialogue, item tooltips, menus, UI labels. Fixed-region watches a set area; window mode (beta) translates the whole screen in the background. Read any spot you like.
• Automatic log — Everything you encounter is recorded. Look back anytime during play to check meanings or pronunciation.
• Word Book + SRS + 8 quiz modes — Save the words and sentences you want to remember, and make them stick with spaced repetition and quizzes (Flashcard, Multiple Choice, Fill Blank, Dictation, and more).
• Album — Save captured scenes as full images with their translation, to look back on memorable moments anytime.
• Anki export — Take your study out of Playto: export your Word Book as a TSV file, or package Album scenes with their images as an Anki deck (.apkg) for spaced-repetition review anywhere. A natural fit for sentence mining.
• Three reading modes — Text for OCR-only speed, Text+ for everyday play (glossary and context aware), and Image, where a local vision model reads the screen itself: stylized fonts, brush and fantasy lettering, vertical Japanese writing, and text painted into textures, plus speaker and scene awareness. Switch any time.
• Per-game glossary — Register character names and custom terms, and they're reflected in that game's translations.
• Multiple capture regions — Watch dialogue, name plates and quest logs at the same time, each with its own overlay.
• Overlay customization — Position (on-text / bottom bar / custom), background opacity, font size, difficult-word highlights.
• Difficulty badges — Words in the log carry JLPT N5–N1 (Japanese) or CEFR A2–C2 (other languages) marks.
• Flexible local models — Pick from bundled models such as Gemma and Qwen; keep a light model on translation and a larger one on explanations. Recommended defaults out of the box.
• Guides and support built in — In-app guides for each use case, and support contact right from the app.
• Fully local — Translation runs on your own PC and works offline while you play — nothing on your screen leaves your machine unless you opt in to Playto Cloud. Supported languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese.
• Game Audio (Beta) — voice lines transcribed, translated, and saved with their original audio (paid edition).
• Playto Cloud (Beta) — optional cloud translation with free trial credits; start before the model finishes downloading.

Before you start

• Setup is guided — A setup wizard walks you from install to your first translation, model downloads included.
• Try Playto Lite first — Local AI needs GPU VRAM in addition to your game (typically 2–4 GB extra). Playto Lite is the free version — please confirm compatibility before purchasing.
• Text-to-speech — Hear captured sentences read aloud. Available for these languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.
• How translation works — Word meanings come from a dictionary. Sentences are translated by the local LLM you choose, shown alongside the original so you always have the real text in front of you.