Generate English subtitles for your Spanish videos

How Spanish audio becomes English subtitles

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

Both languages are written in the Latin alphabet, so the file needs nothing from your player beyond that script.

Why translate Spanish video into English

Spanish is spoken principally in Spain and most of Latin America; 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 Spanish audio

European and Latin American Spanish differ in pronunciation, pronoun use and a good deal of everyday vocabulary, and Caribbean and Rioplatense speech diverge further still. All transcribe well; the variety is preserved rather than standardised.

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 Spanish to English subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Spanish speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Spanish 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
That's all for today.

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 Spanish may need loosening to read well in English.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.