From promotional short films to online tutorials and recorded Zoom calls, video is everywhere, especially in the wake of Covid-19. But if your video’s audio is only in English, how will the rest of the world understand it? This is where foreign language subtitles (or captions, as they’re sometimes known!) come in.
Professional subtitles display on screen and are perfectly synced with the original audio. Read on to find out how to get the best out of your foreign language subtitling project:
Hire a professional
There is plenty of software available for DIY subtitling, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t have a go at making your own. For foreign language subtitling into multiple languages, however, we recommend hiring a professional translation agency to do the hard work for you.
Things like making sure the timecodes match, and that the nuance and correct meaning of everything is appropriately translated for your target audiences, are key. This means taking a rigorous approach and working with native speakers every time.
Check your audio
If you need foreign language subtitles, all you need to do is send us your video for translation. But make sure the audio is crisp and clear!
Fuzzy sound quality, background noise or super-quiet audio can all cause problems. Creating foreign language subtitles for poor-quality audio will take far longer, and may even be impossible for parts of your video.
We transcribe your video for you
When we receive your video files, the first thing we do is transcribe the original audio. A timecoded transcript (SRT file) is created from this. We can then translate the transcript into as many languages as required, just like translating a regular document.
Send us your final version
If you think you’ll want to make changes to your video, or you’re still waiting on final edits, please don’t send it to us just yet! Only send it across to us for subtitling once you’re happy that everything is finalised.
If you make edits to your video post-subtitling, the timecodes we created will no longer match the edited video: this means your subtitles will display at the wrong time, or may even contain content which has been edited out. And if we have to make changes to the subtitles midway through the project, this will delay delivery and increase costs.
We follow the rules
Our foreign language subtitles follow industry standards, such as having a maximum of two lines of subtitles per screen. This means the subtitles will be easy for your target audience to read and understand, giving your video maximum impact. To make sure your subtitles are up to scratch, it’s easiest to let a language services provider complete your foreign language subtitling for you.
What you’ll get in return
Once we’ve finished creating the foreign language subtitles for your video, we then send you the translated SRT files, with perfect timecodes. This means the audio and subtitles will match exactly, no matter what language they’re in.
