Translate a Douyin video into English: the speech, the on-screen text and the caption
Short answer: a Douyin (抖音, Chinese TikTok) video carries almost all of its meaning in what is said and what is written on screen. Neither one can be selected or copied, and Douyin publishes no captions. Paste the video's share link into LinkDigest and choose English. It transcribes the speech, reads the on-screen text, and returns all of it in English next to the Chinese, with the title and the key points. You don't need a Douyin account or cookies, and you don't download anything. Translation adds 1 credit to the read; sign-up comes with 10 free credits.
Disclosure: LinkDigest is the author's own service. The run below was made on 2026-11-15 on a public video.
What a translator misses
A translator app works on text you can paste. On Douyin there is very little of it:
- The speech. Most Douyin videos are someone talking to the camera, and Douyin publishes no transcript. The burned-in subtitles you see are pixels.
- The on-screen text. Headlines, labels and numbers are drawn into the frames.
- The link itself. ChatGPT and most tools can't open a Douyin link at all (why), so there is nothing to translate until something reads the video.
One real run
The video is a public one about one-person AI startups. The last spoken line starts at 2:17, so it is about two and a half minutes long.
| Time | 22 seconds |
| Cost | 1 credit. The video had been read before, so the read itself was free; the translation is +1 |
| Translated | the title, the speech (955 Chinese characters → about 2,800 characters of English), 72 lines of on-screen text, 9 key points |
| Kept in Chinese | the original of every field, so you can check the translation against it |
A few on-screen lines as they came back:
| On screen | English |
|---|---|
| 900人公司 | 900-person company |
| 二号位CTO离职 | No. 2 CTO resigns |
| 第2次用火 | Using fire for the 2nd time |
The last one is the account's name, translated word for word. A name is translated like any other text, which is why the Chinese stays next to it.
How to do it
In the browser: sign in, paste the share link on the workspace, set Translate to English (or 日本語, 한국어), and read.
From code: add translate_to to the call.
curl -X POST https://linkdigest.dev/api/v1/digest \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ld_live_..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://v.douyin.com/...", "translate_to": "en"}'
The response keeps every original field and adds translation:
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
translation.title, translation.caption |
The video's title and description in English |
translation.transcript_text |
The speech, translated as one text |
translation.ocr_text[] |
The on-screen text, line by line |
translation.key_points[] |
The takeaways, each still tied to its Chinese quote |
translation.note |
What the translation left out, if anything |
The Chinese transcript keeps its timestamps (transcript[].t), so you can line up any English sentence with the moment it was said.
From an agent: in Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client, the digest_url tool takes the same translate_to. Setup is on the Douyin platform page.
The link you need
In the Douyin app, press Share → Copy link. You get a short v.douyin.com/… link inside a line of Chinese text. You can paste the whole line: LinkDigest finds the link in it (details). The short code is case-sensitive, so copy it rather than retyping it. A douyin.com/video/<id> address from a browser works too.
Limits, said plainly
- Public videos only. If Douyin won't serve a particular video through its embed player, you get a clear answer naming the two routes that still read it (upload the saved video, or the browser extension on your own tab). Nothing is charged.
- Speech recognition is Mandarin-first; strong dialect or loud music over the speech lowers accuracy.
- A transcript longer than 24,000 characters is translated from its start only, and
translation.notesays how far it got. The Chinese transcript is always whole. - Long videos cost more to read (by the minute); the translation stays +1.
For the transcript alone, with timestamps and no translation, see the Douyin video transcript API. For RedNote posts, see Translate a RedNote post into English. 中文版：抖音视频翻译。