YouTube applies AI translation to video titles and descriptions, and AI dubbing to audio, by default. Its language settings also don’t make clear how to split the job for a multilingual viewer: the interface, titles, descriptions, channels, subtitles, and dubs. YouTube doesn’t let viewers opt out of AI translation; the most it offers is switching each video’s audio track back by hand.

The settings are split and live separately. Display Language sets the interface language, which also becomes the default language for translations. Preferred languages lists the languages that skip AI translation.

1. Click the profile picture, then Display Language, and choose the language for the interface and translations.
2. Click the profile picture, then Settings > Playback & Performance, and under Language, click add or edit languages.
3. Select each language that should skip AI translation, then click confirm.

The list covers only its own languages. A video in any other language is still translated into the display language, and YouTube’s help promises original audio only for videos in a preferred language. The display language is saved in the browser, so clearing its cookies and cache resets it.

I set the display language to English and added English and Korean as preferred languages. For the languages I speak, I keep the original; for the ones I don’t, I’m in the sub-over-dub club. I can switch a video’s audio track back myself; titles and descriptions, however, follow the settings.

I’ve tried extensions and userscripts to rein in YouTube’s reckless AI integrations; so far, this is the closest thing to an official off switch that Google offers. YouTube on the web changes so often behind the scenes that most extensions and userscripts for it need constant vigilance.

I don’t know when YouTube added the preferred language setting. I set it on desktop and mobile web, and I believe the same setting works in the YouTube app. It is an official method now, though YouTube may change how it works again at any time. When it does, I wish they would at least put every language setting on one page.