Generate English subtitles for your Bulgarian videos

From Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet

Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic 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.

How Bulgarian audio becomes English subtitles

Audio in Bulgarian (Български) 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 Bulgarian speech — each line appears at the moment it was actually said.

Why translate Bulgarian video into English

Bulgarian is spoken principally in Bulgaria; 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 Bulgarian audio

Bulgarian is unusual among Slavic languages in having dropped noun cases and in attaching its definite article to the end of the word rather than placing it before. It is also close to Macedonian, close enough that detection between the two is not dependable.

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 a Bulgarian to English subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Bulgarian speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Bulgarian 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
Thank you all for coming.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
Let's start with the first question.

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 Bulgarian 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.