Generate Ukrainian subtitles for your Russian videos

Choosing between Russian and Ukrainian

Russian and Ukrainian are close enough that automatic detection between them is unreliable, especially on short clips — there is simply not enough audio to tell them apart. Set both languages explicitly here rather than leaving the source on detection.

Because the two are so close, translation between them is largely a matter of vocabulary and written convention rather than restructuring sentences. Expect a Ukrainian subtitle file that tracks the Russian original almost line for line.

How Russian audio becomes Ukrainian subtitles

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

Searching a Russian transcript

Russian 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 Ukrainian 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.

Why translate Russian video into Ukrainian

Russian is spoken principally in Russia and widely across the post-Soviet states; Ukrainian in Ukraine. A Ukrainian 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 Russian audio

Russian is heavily inflected, so the same word appears in many forms and a transcript will not repeat a term identically the way an English one does. That is correct, not an error, and it is worth knowing before you search a transcript for a keyword.

About the Ukrainian subtitles

Ukrainian and Russian share the Cyrillic script and a good deal of vocabulary, which makes automatic detection between them unreliable on short clips. Selecting the language explicitly avoids a confidently wrong transcript.

What a Russian to Ukrainian subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Russian speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Russian 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
Доброго ранку всім.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
Дякую всім, що прийшли.

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
Ви мене добре чуєте?

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
Пишіть свої запитання нижче.

What to check before publishing

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