Can I learn Japanese from YouTube with Fushi? Can I look up words in online videos?

YouTube is a treasure trove for learning Japanese: daily vlogs by Japanese YouTubers, gameplay commentary, news, interviews, Japanese teaching channels — a far wider range than anime, and many videos come with Japanese subtitles, either uploaded by the creator or auto-generated by YouTube. Fushi can play YouTube videos directly and turn those subtitles into ones you can tap for lookups and mine into cards.

The boundaries first: Fushi isn't a YouTube client — there's no in-app search, subscriptions, recommendations, comments or sign-in. You find a video on YouTube and import it link by link. Once imported, it works much like a local video.

Importing a YouTube video into Fushi ​

1. Find the video on YouTube (web or the mobile app) and copy the link. youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, shorts/… and m.youtube.com/… are all recognized.
2. In Fushi's video library, tap Import video, paste the link into Video stream URL, and tap Import.
3. On desktop you can also drag the link from the browser's address bar straight into the Fushi video library window; the import opens and completes automatically.
4. The video is added to the library as a streaming entry: Fushi fetches its real title and thumbnail for the cover once. However the link is written, the same video is recognized as one entry, so there are no duplicates. Opening it from the library later resumes where you left off.

Fushi resolves the video stream again every time you open it, so you need a network that can reach YouTube normally; videos that were deleted, made private or are region-locked won't open.

Quality ​

Fushi plays YouTube's separate video and audio streams, up to 4K. The default quality is set in Settings → Video → Playback → "YouTube quality": "Auto" puts smoothness first (up to 1080p); pick 2160p for 4K. During playback you can also switch temporarily in the player's quality menu. The few videos without separate streams can only play at 360p — that's a limitation on YouTube's side.

Subtitles: pick the Japanese track and tap words ​

After opening the video, go to the player's subtitle menu; every subtitle track the video has on YouTube gets its own row:

• Manual subtitles (uploaded by the creator) come first and show just the language name;
• Auto-generated subtitles are marked "(auto-generated)" after the language name — YouTube made them with speech recognition;
• Translated subtitles are marked "(translated)" after the language name — YouTube's machine translation.

When the video opens, Fushi automatically attaches the most suitable track first (manual subtitles take priority over auto-generated ones); if it isn't the language you want, switch in the menu.

Pick a Japanese track and the subtitle appears on the picture: tap words to look them up, tap the plus to mine a card, just like with anime. A track is only downloaded when you pick it, so opening a video doesn't pull every language at once. If a track says it has no text, try another one.

A few tips:

• Prefer manual Japanese subtitles — they're the most accurate. Many Japanese YouTubers subtitle their own videos, especially teaching channels;
• Auto-generated subtitles are usable but contain wrong characters and their line breaks aren't always right — fine when you only want to look up a few words; check against the audio before mining and fix mistakes in the card editor;
• Translated subtitles are only good for a quick reference glance — don't learn from them;
• If a video has no Japanese subtitles at all, you can still attach a subtitle file of your own with Import subtitle file… in the subtitle menu.

When you mine, the card's sentence audio and animated image / clip are cut straight from YouTube's real video and audio streams using the line's timing — not screen-recorded — so sound and picture are at original quality. More on mining: making your first card; on the lookup popup: how to use the lookup popup.

What doesn't work on YouTube videos ​

YouTube is a network stream and Fushi can't get the complete audio file, so the following features that depend on a local audio track aren't offered for YouTube videos:

• Generate subtitles with speech recognition and Retime with speech model — these are only available for local videos and videos played over interconnect; see no Japanese subtitles — what now?;
• Align to embedded subtitles — it needs to extract a reference track from a local video file.

Everything else in the player — jumping line by line, replaying the current line, auto-pause, the subtitle list, speed — works as usual; see efficient controls for learning from video.

What about Netflix, Bilibili and other video sites ​

Video sites other than YouTube (Netflix, Bilibili, niconico, Prime Video, TVer and so on) serve a web player page rather than a video file, which Fushi's player can't open. Pasting such an address into "Import video" shows a notice that the built-in web video player is temporarily disabled and the address can't be played in the app for now — opening these web player pages inside the app is currently switched off.

For these sites, use the Fushi browser extension: play the video in your browser as usual, and the extension overlays subtitles on the video so you can tap a word or hover with Shift to look it up, with a whole-episode subtitle sidebar, while mining is handled by the Fushi desktop app. You can watch YouTube in the browser this way too, which suits videos you'd rather watch on the web than import. See looking up words with the browser extension.

For sites where you can get the video file's address directly (mp4, HLS / m3u8 direct links), paste it into Video stream URL just like a YouTube link, filling in Referer / User-Agent under "Advanced (anti-leech headers)" if needed.

Common situations ​

• It keeps loading or errors after import: first check in a browser that the video itself still plays (not deleted, not private, no region or age restriction), then that your current network can open YouTube normally;
• The subtitle menu has no YouTube tracks at all: the video simply has no subtitles on YouTube (not even auto-generated ones); the only option is to import a subtitle file manually;
• Stuttering playback: in Settings → Video → Playback → "YouTube quality" drop from 2160p back to "Auto", or switch down one step temporarily in the player's quality menu — 4K is demanding on both network and decoding;
• The library shows a placeholder cover: downloading the thumbnail failed at import (it retries once, then falls back to a placeholder); playback isn't affected.

Tips for learning Japanese with YouTube ​

• Start with content you already enjoy: gameplay, cooking, travel vlogs, channels of voice actors or VTubers you like — being able to keep watching matters more than anything;
• Start with videos that have manual Japanese subtitles, and move on to auto-subtitle-only videos once your listening improves;
• For fast speakers, press [ to slow down one step and combine it with "Subtitle pause playback mode" to listen line by line;
• Mining a few of the most useful lines per video is plenty — don't make a card for every new word.

If you don't have Fushi yet, get it from the download page; for more on immersion learning see immersion.