Generate Arabic subtitles for your Persian videos

Two right-to-left scripts

Persian and Arabic both run right to left, so direction is one thing you do not have to think about here — the file goes out in the same orientation it came in.

Mixed passages — a Latin-script brand name or number inside a right-to-left line — are where rendering most often looks wrong, and they are worth checking in the player you actually publish to rather than in a text editor.

How Persian audio becomes Arabic subtitles

Audio in Persian (فارسی) is transcribed first, then translated into Arabic (العربية). Because the translation runs on the transcript rather than on the audio, the Arabic subtitle file keeps the timings of the original Persian speech — each line appears at the moment it was actually said.

From Perso-Arabic to the Arabic script

Persian is written in Perso-Arabic and Arabic in the Arabic script, so the exported file uses a different writing system from the audio that produced it. The subtitle formats handle that — SRT and VTT are plain text and carry any script — but the font in whatever plays the file has to cover it.

This is the most common reason a Arabic subtitle track looks correct in an editor and shows boxes or blanks on a device. Test on the target platform before you publish a batch.

Why translate Persian video into Arabic

Persian is spoken principally in Iran, Afghanistan, where it is called Dari, and Tajikistan; Arabic in North Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. A Arabic subtitle track is what lets one recording reach both audiences without re-recording, re-editing or dubbing it.

Because subtitles are a separate file rather than part of the picture, you can attach several language tracks to the same video and let viewers pick.

About the Persian audio

Persian is right-to-left and, unlike Arabic, is Indo-European — shared script, unrelated grammar. Iranian Persian and Afghan Dari differ mainly in pronunciation and some vocabulary and both transcribe into the same script.

About the Arabic subtitles

The gap between Modern Standard Arabic and the regional dialects is the thing to plan around: broadcast news is close to the standard, while everyday Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine and Maghrebi speech diverge from it considerably. Standard-register material transcribes markedly better than heavy dialect.

What a Persian to Arabic subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Persian speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Persian speaker's — translation does not move them, which is why the file drops onto the original video unchanged.

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,240
لنبدأ بالسؤال الأول.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
هل تسمعونني بوضوح؟

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
اكتبوا أسئلتكم في الأسفل.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
هذا كل شيء لليوم.

What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Persian may need loosening to read well in Arabic.
• That the Arabic script renders in your player, not just in the editor you exported from.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.