I've been learning Japanese for a few years and kept running into a similar problem. I'd find a video I wanted to learn from, hear a useful sentence, and then realise that turning that sentence into something I could study later was both time consuming and draining at times.

I would end up jumping between a video player, subtitles/transcription, a dictionary, screenshots, audio clips and Anki. So I built SubSmith to bring that workflow together.

You can drop a video or audio file into it, generate a transcript locally and then use the transcript alongside the media to:

* look up words and sentences * replay individual lines * edit the transcript * save useful sentences with their original context/audio * export them as Anki cards

The important part for me is that it works with your own media. It isn't tied to a particular streaming service or library, so I can use the random anime episode, podcast, lecture, etc. that I'm actually interested in studying.

It's an offline-first desktop app, and transcription happens locally rather than sending the media to a transcription API.

I'm sharing it here because I'm now more interested in finding out where this workflow breaks down for other people rather than adding features randomly now that I have solid core/base.

For example:

* Would you actually save sentences from your own media? * Which part of this process feels like too much work? * Does having the audio/context attached make creating an Anki card more useful? * Would you prefer this to work inside your existing video player/browser? * Is installing a desktop app a significant barrier? * And does requiring an account before starting the free trial make you give up?

The current version does require an account to start the trial, and I'm trying to work out whether that's meaningful friction for the people who would actually use this.

It's free to try, and I'd particularly appreciate feedback from people who already learn languages through their own videos, anime, films, podcasts or other media.

I'm the developer, so I'll be around in the comments to answer questions and discuss how it works.

https://subsmith.app

Show HN: I made a manga critique site with professional Japanese manga editors

Corporate America Cut Big Checks to Trump. Now CEOs Fear Subpoenas Are Coming

South Korea's 'AI for All' Push Gives Free Access to Every Citizen

How does football cause brain disease

The Download: inside OpenAI's Hugging Face hack, and a new EV takes on the US

How LibreOffice Is Funded

Show HN: SubSmith – Turn your own videos into language-learning material

Are we just a couple steps away from a runaway AI?

Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic was unlawful, US judge rules

Show HN: Jack the Snipper – Paste HTML or rich text, get clean plain text back

How Much of the Internet Is Written with AI?

Show HN: Tavi – A pet health tracker that works offline, with no account

Panic passes Trump tariff refunds back to the Playdate buyers

Show HN: Live football data. Clear patterns. Smart bets

LLM Cliché Highlighter

Kojugate: Graph-native multiphysics simulation engine and digital twin

The Language of Headlines

One of east coast's largest datacenters accused of 'violating federal law'

Scanning 170M lines of code: 44% of AI-found critical vulnerabilities were FP

Show HN: MCP server that drives the browser you are signed into

Assessly

LLMs are multi-layered user interfaces

Performing Digital Surgery to Fix MIDIs for My Hardware (My Post Was Wrong)

Show HN: Public MCP for Greek price comparison (no API key)

Quest for eternal dock on Wayland – lambdock (C and GTK4 and Lisp Guile Scheme)

Intel Linux Driver Orphaned for Limiting RF Exposure to Humans

Making Your Data Ready for Agentic AI

AI and Cognitive Science Redefine Knowledge Retention

Show HN: Less Paper – native iOS/iPadOS client for Paperless-ngx

Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees [pdf]

Ask HN: Built a free minimal daily planner, habit tracker and Pomodoro timer