Generate French subtitles for your Portuguese videos

How Portuguese audio becomes French subtitles

Audio in Portuguese (Português) is transcribed first, then translated into French (Français). Because the translation runs on the transcript rather than on the audio, the French subtitle file keeps the timings of the original Portuguese 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 Portuguese video into French

Portuguese is spoken principally in Brazil, Portugal and Lusophone Africa; French in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and much of West and Central Africa. A French 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 Portuguese audio

Brazilian and European Portuguese differ enough in rhythm and vowel reduction that they can sound like separate languages to a learner. Both transcribe accurately, and the written output follows the variety spoken.

About the French subtitles

French elides heavily in speech — words run together in ways the written form does not show — which makes word boundaries the hard part rather than the vocabulary. African and Québécois French are both well handled.

What a Portuguese to French subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Portuguese speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Portuguese 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
Commençons par la première question.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
Est-ce que vous m'entendez bien ?

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
C'est tout pour aujourd'hui.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
À la prochaine.

What to check before publishing

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