Need to translate webtoons to English and cannot find a scanlation for your series? The process is straightforward: find the raw chapter on Naver Webtoon, KakaoPage, or another source, copy the chapter URL, paste it into OpenToon on your phone, and pick your language. GPU-accelerated OCR reads every speech bubble, a context-aware AI translates the full bubble in context, and inpainting redraws the vertical panels cleanly with your language replacing the original. Most chapters are ready in a couple of minutes.
Why Is It Hard to Find Webtoon Translations in English?
Webtoons are published on Korean platforms and released on a tight weekly schedule. In 2026, most series on Naver Webtoon and KakaoPage update every week, meaning the Korean version is always several chapters ahead of any English adaptation or fan translation. For readers who want to read ahead, therefore, the raws are the only option.
The situation became harder when Webtoons.com shut down its fan translation service in September 2025. Before that, fans could submit and access community translations through the official platform. After the shutdown, however, readers who relied on those fan-submitted translations lost a major source of free-to-access content. As a result, translating raws directly with an app became the practical replacement.
Additionally, many webtoon series never get an official English translation at all, particularly romance and adult titles that run exclusively on Korean pay platforms. And for readers in Spain, Brazil, France, or Indonesia, even an English fan translation is not the ideal outcome. Translating the raws into your own language directly is the cleanest solution.
What Do You Need to Translate Webtoons?
Before you start, get these three things in place:
- A raw chapter URL. Navigate to Naver Webtoon, KakaoPage, Lezhin, or another webtoon platform and open the chapter you want to translate. The raw sources page covers which platforms host which series.
- OpenToon on your phone. Download OpenToon on iOS or Android. No setup required.
- A couple of minutes. Webtoon chapters tend to have less dense text than manga, so most translate in a couple of minutes.
Webtoons use a vertical scroll format rather than the page-by-page layout of manga. This does not affect the translation process: OpenToon handles the vertical strip layout the same way it handles traditional comic pages.
How to Translate Webtoons to English: Step-by-Step
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Find the raw chapter on a webtoon platform. Open Naver Webtoon, KakaoPage, Lezhin, or a similar site and navigate to the chapter you want. If the chapter requires coins or a subscription on the raw platform, unlock it there first.
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Copy the chapter URL. Tap your browser's address bar and copy the full link for the chapter page.
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Open OpenToon and paste the URL. Launch OpenToon, tap import, and paste the chapter URL. OpenToon fetches the chapter images directly from the source. Nothing is uploaded externally.
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Choose your output language. Select from 50+ target languages. Many webtoon readers want English, but Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Indonesian, and dozens more are available. OpenToon is not English-only.
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Let the translation run. GPU-accelerated OCR reads Korean text out of every speech bubble in the vertical panels. Next, the context-aware LLM translates each bubble in full context, not sentence by sentence. Finally, inpainting removes the original Korean characters and redraws the background cleanly, so your translated text lands on a clean panel rather than on top of the old text.
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Read and tap any bubble to check the original. Scroll through the translated webtoon chapter vertically as normal. Tap any speech bubble to flip between the translation and the original Korean text. Tap again to return.
What Are the Most Common Mistakes to Avoid?
- Translating bubble by bubble with a camera app. Pointing a general translation app at each speech bubble is slow and produces context-free, literal results without any redraw. The original text stays visible underneath.
- Using a desktop-only browser extension. Webtoons are designed for vertical mobile reading. A desktop-first extension forces you to switch devices and defeats the purpose.
- Assuming output is English only. Non-English readers have the same need to read ahead. If your target language is not English, pick a tool that explicitly supports it. Many popular tools do not.
- Relying on unofficial fan translation aggregators. Community archives are useful when they exist, but coverage is inconsistent, quality varies widely, and many series are simply not there.
- Picking a tool that meters credits. Webtoon readers often binge new-to-them series dozens of chapters at a time. A credit-capped tool makes that expensive. An unlimited subscription is worth it.
How Does OpenToon Handle Webtoon Translation?
Webtoons present a specific challenge for translation tools: they are long vertical strips rather than individual pages, and Korean text can appear in small bubbles scattered across a tall image. OpenToon's OCR handles this layout natively.
When you paste a webtoon chapter URL, OpenToon fetches the vertical strip images and runs GPU-accelerated OCR across the full height of each panel. Next, the context-aware LLM reads each speech bubble in context before translating. Finally, inpainting removes the Korean text and redraws the background. The translated chapter scrolls vertically the same way the original does, so the reading experience is unchanged. Translations are stored on your device, not redistributed anywhere.
According to readers sharing workarounds in r/OtomeIsekai, the default fallback for years has been DeepL or Kakao Translate combined with a separate image-to-text tool: multiple steps, no redraw, and still desktop-first. A dedicated app that handles all of it on mobile changes the experience significantly. Readers who follow manhwa as well as webtoons will find the same pipeline covered in the manhwa translation guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you translate a Korean webtoon to English on a phone? To translate a Korean webtoon to English on a phone, install OpenToon on iOS or Android, open the raw chapter on Naver Webtoon or KakaoPage in your browser, copy the chapter URL, paste it into OpenToon, and select English as the output language. OpenToon runs OCR, context-aware AI translation, and inpainting on-device, delivering a fully translated chapter in a couple of minutes. No desktop required.
Can I translate webtoons into languages other than English? Yes. OpenToon supports 50+ target languages for webtoon translation, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Indonesian, German, Thai, and more. Most dedicated translation tools only output English, making OpenToon one of the few options for readers who want to translate Korean webtoons into their own language rather than into English as an intermediary step.
What happened to the Webtoons fan translation service? The Webtoons.com fan translation service was discontinued in September 2025. Before that, fans could submit and read community translations through the official platform. After the shutdown, readers who relied on that service for free translations of Korean and other-language series were left without a built-in option. Self-translating the raws using an app like OpenToon became the practical alternative for most readers.
Which platforms have the most webtoon raws to translate? Naver Webtoon and KakaoPage have the largest libraries of ongoing Korean webtoon raws across all genres. Lezhin focuses on adult and romance webtoons. Bomtoon carries a large catalogue of Korean adult titles. Most of these platforms work with OpenToon by URL paste. For a full breakdown of which platforms to use for which series, see the raw sources page.