Generate Gujarati subtitles for your Kannada videos

From the Kannada script to the Gujarati script

Kannada is written in the Kannada script and Gujarati in the Gujarati script, 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 Gujarati 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 Kannada audio becomes Gujarati subtitles

Audio in Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ) is transcribed first, then translated into Gujarati (ગુજરાતી). Because the translation runs on the transcript rather than on the audio, the Gujarati subtitle file keeps the timings of the original Kannada speech — each line appears at the moment it was actually said.

Why translate Kannada video into Gujarati

Kannada is spoken principally in Karnataka, in southern India; Gujarati in Gujarat, in western India, and a large diaspora. A Gujarati 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 Kannada audio

Kannada has a large gap between formal and colloquial speech, and regional variation across Karnataka is wide enough that the same word can surface quite differently in Bengaluru and in the north of the state. Both transcribe; neither is corrected toward the other.

About the Gujarati subtitles

The Gujarati script is closely related to Devanagari but drops the horizontal line along the top of each word, which is the quickest way to tell the two apart in a subtitle file. Business and trade recordings mix in English terms heavily, and those are transcribed as spoken rather than translated into Gujarati equivalents.

What a Kannada to Gujarati subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Kannada speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Kannada 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
બધાને સુપ્રભાત.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
આવવા બદલ બધાનો આભાર.

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
હું થોડી વારમાં વિગતો જણાવીશ.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
આજ માટે આટલું જ.

What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Kannada may need loosening to read well in Gujarati.
• That the Gujarati script renders in your player, not just in the editor you exported from.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.