How to Translate Video Subtitles Without Hundreds of Translators: AI Tools to the Rescue
With the growing globalization, video localization becomes a mandatory step for successful company promotion in the international market. By adapting content for different countries, a brand gains a new audience, enhances its prestige, and increases revenues.
There are two options to reach foreign clients: the ideal one is to do dubbing, which is described in detail here (i.e., completely replace the voice track), the simpler one is to translate subtitles into the required language. This is much faster, cheaper, and more efficient, especially for smaller projects.
In any case, before dubbing a video, transcription is carried out, so subtitle translation often comes as part of the services package offered by dubbing creation services. Subtitles can be translated from English into other languages and vice versa. But primarily, it's about reaching an audience for whom English is not native.
Prospects of Subtitle Translation
When choosing between subtitles or dubbing, the
country for which video localization will be done should be taken into account.
For example, in Spain and France, people are accustomed to consuming visual
content with voice-over and may simply not perceive textual accompaniment,
while residents of South Korea and Portugal may find it easier to read written
information.
South Korea is a country with one of the top ten most developed economies in the world. It ranks 11th in the number of ultra-rich individuals, and over 57% of the country's population belongs to the middle class. Its capital is among the top five richest cities with a GDP of 779.3 billion dollars. This accounts for high purchasing power of citizens and makes the Korean market promising for international business.
Adapting one's video content helps in tapping into one
of the most developed markets in the world. Both as a primary and supplementary
solution for localizing ads and business presentation videos, translating
subtitles into Korean contributes to more effective communication with the local
audience.
China's GDP is one of the largest in the world, at around 17.5 trillion US dollars. The country is home to over 1,100 US-dollar billionaires, which is the second highest after the USA. The average income per capita in China in 2020 was about 11,000 dollars, significantly increasing the purchasing power of the Chinese population.
China represents a vast and relatively young market that has all the prerequisites for rapid adoption of digital business solutions. However, to tap into this market and acquire the necessary clients, a lot of video content in Chinese is required, as the majority of school graduates in China hardly understand English. Presenting oneself in the Celestial Empire can also be achieved through subtitle translation.
Germany's GDP is one of the largest in the world, estimated at over $4 trillion. The country is home to approximately 2.1 million millionaires and 137 billionaires, with over 65% of the population belonging to the middle class. Thanks to stable income levels and a high standard of living, the purchasing power of the population is also high, making Germany attractive for companies from other countries to tap into.
The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) attracts American corporations as one of the most promising markets in Europe for conducting business. It hosts branches of the most well-known companies such as Apple, Tesla, and many others. If you're not yet planning such extensive expansion but still need to reach the German market, the simplest solution is to attract a German audience to your video content by translating the subtitles.
Japan is among the top three global leaders with the strongest economies, trailing only behind the USA and China. In 2022, Tokyo alone had 290,000 dollar millionaires. Over 55% of the population belongs to the middle class. The high purchasing power makes this market very promising for business localization.
To attract Japanese buyers and clients, you can adapt your video content to the viewers' native language. Dubbing into Japanese is a quite meticulous task considering significant cultural differences, and it's quite expensive. It's much easier and faster to translate the same subtitles into Japanese manually or using specialized software, which local residents enjoy watching.
Portugal is not a very wealthy country; it ranks only 54th in the world in terms of its economy. Therefore, this country is still not heavily penetrated by international companies, leaving ample opportunity to enter its market relatively easily. The easiest way to do this is by distributing advertising, overview, and other types of videos in Portuguese. With a small budget, you can limit yourself to translating subtitles.
Despite the high level of English proficiency, films in the country are not dubbed but shown with subtitles. Portuguese eyes have long been accustomed to them. Portugal has a population of over 10,460,000 people, and at least a third of them could become consumers of your video content. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are particularly popular channels for its distribution.
The Spanish market is a fairly promising and relatively young direction for business localization. In recent years, Spain's economy has repeatedly become the largest in the Eurozone, and the growth prospects remain. Consequently, entering its territory, with a population of over 47 million people, will allow companies to attract new customers and significantly increase their revenues.
The main challenge of entering the Spanish market is that over 60% of Spaniards do not know or understand English even at a basic level, and the rest often learn French in school. The problem is solved by translating subtitles into Spanish.
Potential Difficulties in Subtitle Translation
The main challenge lies in the need to attract translation specialists for each individual language group, for example, "Spanish-Chinese." With the help of artificial intelligence technologies that Vidby uses in our work, within the framework of one project, we translate subtitles for dozens of countries simultaneously.
Korean – Cultural Differences
The total number of Koreans worldwide is over 82 million. And at least 70% of people, excluding young children, are consumers of video content. Besides South Korea, Koreans reside in Canada, Japan, the USA, China, and many other countries. The Korean language ranks 15th among the most spoken languages in the world.
The Korean language uses a writing system called "Hangul," which consists mainly of phonetic characters. Like any language, it contains unique expressions, idioms, and cultural speech characteristics that can be difficult to translate for humans. Automatic subtitle translation into Korean will help avoid these difficulties and attract a multi-million audience.
China – Alphabet Difficulties
Chinese is the official language in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. It is estimated that over 1.2 billion people worldwide speak it. In China alone, more than 1.1 billion people use it, and outside the country, approximately 100 million, including the USA, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
The Chinese language has over 10 dialect groups and uses a logographic writing system, where each character represents a specific meaning. This is different from the phonetic systems familiar to us, making the translation process more challenging, especially for speakers of languages with alphabetical writing systems.
Germany – Complex Grammar
German is the official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg. Over 100 million people worldwide speak it. It is recognized as the language of business and economics since Germany represents the economic center of the EU.
Germans speak English well, but, like no other European country, they prefer consuming video content in their native language. To earn their loyalty and reach a larger audience, subtitles can be translated into German in the same advertising and presentation videos. But German is known for its complex grammatical structure and syntax, such as noun declensions, verb changes depending on tense and person, and word order.
Japan – Text Orientation Difficulties
Japanese is the official language in Japan and one of the official languages on Okinawa Island. It is actively studied and used in the USA, Canada, China, and South Korea. It is actively applied in business negotiations. Over 120 million people worldwide speak it, making this country a prospective market for localizing video content.
Japanese uses a combination of the ideographic Kanji system, the syllabic Katakana, and the phonetic Hiragana. The local alphabet comprises over 5000 characters, but Japanese people use only 2000–3000 of them. One of its difficulties lies in the almost complete absence of spaces between words.
Portugal – Verb Confusion
Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and, besides Portugal itself, is used in everyday life in Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique. The total number of Portuguese speakers is over 600 million, ranking it sixth in the world in terms of prevalence.
In South America, English is not widely spoken (in Brazil, less than 10% speak it), so most users prefer to watch videos in Portuguese. At the same time, the internet penetration among the local population is growing — up to 67.5%, and subtitle translation will help increase the audience of personal blogs and channels with corporate videos. However, Portuguese grammar can be complex due to the rich system of verb tenses, conjugations, and declensions.
Spain – What You Hear is What You Write?
More than 580 million people worldwide speak Spanish, making it the second most spoken language after Chinese. It is official in 21 countries, predominantly in South America: Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, etc.
Spanish is widely used in tourism, international trade, finance, media, arts, and culture. Thus, businesses in entirely different fields require subtitle translation.
Spanish has its peculiarities in sound pronunciation and stress, which can create difficulties in transcription and pronunciation adaptation, so subtitle translation is often preferred over dubbing..
5 Reasons to Translate Subtitles
Various studies show that reading subtitles in one's native language is more effective for retaining information in memory than watching dubbed content. If your audience consists of people older than 11, textual accompaniment is easier for viewers to perceive.
