Generate English subtitles for your Finnish videos

Searching a Finnish transcript

Finnish 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 Finnish audio becomes English subtitles

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

Why translate Finnish video into English

Finnish is spoken principally in Finland; 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 Finnish audio

Finnish spelling maps onto pronunciation almost exactly, which makes it transcribe cleanly, but words are built by stacking endings and grow long enough to stretch a subtitle line on their own. Spoken Finnish also differs markedly from the written standard, and a transcript records the spoken form.

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 Finnish to English subtitle file looks like

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

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
Let's start with the first question.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
Can you hear me clearly?

What to check before publishing

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