Generate English subtitles for your Arabic videos

From right-to-left Arabic into English

Arabic runs right to left and English runs left to right, so the subtitle file reverses direction relative to the speech. Nothing needs configuring for that, but it is worth previewing once before you publish.

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 Arabic audio becomes English subtitles

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

From the Arabic script to the Latin alphabet

Arabic is written in the Arabic script and English in the Latin alphabet, 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 English 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 Arabic video into English

Arabic is spoken principally in North Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula; English in worldwide. A English 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 Arabic audio

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.

About the English subtitles

English has a wider spread of accents than any other language here, and the gap between spelling and pronunciation means recognition leans on context rather than sound alone. Names and technical terms are where errors concentrate, because those are exactly the words context cannot predict.

What an Arabic to English subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Arabic speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Arabic 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
Let's start with the first question.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
Can you hear me clearly?

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
I'll share the details in a moment.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
See you next time.

What to check before publishing

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