Generate English subtitles for your Czech videos

Searching a Czech transcript

Czech is heavily inflected, so the same term appears in a range of forms rather than repeating identically. That is correct output, but it means searching the transcript for a keyword will miss most of its occurrences unless you search for the stem.

It matters here because the English translation collapses much of that variation, and the two files will not line up term for term even though they line up line for line.

How Czech audio becomes English subtitles

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

Why translate Czech video into English

Czech is spoken principally in Czechia; 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 Czech audio

Czech permits syllables built entirely from consonants, so a run of letters with no vowel in it is usually correct rather than a dropped character. The everyday spoken register differs from the written standard in its endings, and transcription follows what was said rather than correcting it upward.

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 Czech to English subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Czech speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Czech 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
Good morning, everyone.

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
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What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Czech may need loosening to read well in English.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.