Generate Gujarati subtitles for your Tamil videos

From the Tamil script to the Gujarati script

Tamil is written in the Tamil 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 Tamil audio becomes Gujarati subtitles

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

Why translate Tamil video into Gujarati

Tamil is spoken principally in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia; 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 Tamil audio

Spoken Tamil differs substantially from the written literary form, and transcription follows what was actually said rather than normalising it upward. Tamil films and vlogs also mix in English freely — the 'Tanglish' register — and that mixing is transcribed as spoken rather than translated away.

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 Tamil to Gujarati subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Tamil speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Tamil 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
તમારા પ્રશ્નો નીચે લખો.

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
આજ માટે આટલું જ.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
આવતી વખતે મળીએ.

What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Tamil 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.