An SRT file is just numbered blocks: an index, a timecode line, and one or two lines of text. To translate it you only need to translate the text and leave the numbers and timecodes exactly as they are. Here are three ways to do that, and how to check the result.
What an SRT block looks like
12 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:06,900 Where were you last night?
Change only the last line. If a translator touches the arrow, the commas or the blank line between blocks, players will refuse the file or show subtitles at the wrong time.
Option 1: a translator made for subtitle files (easiest)
A tool built for SRT reads the blocks, sends only the text to the machine translator and writes the timecodes back untouched. Our Subtitle translator does this for SRT and VTT files in 80+ languages. It is free and needs no account: upload the file, pick the target language, download.
Option 2: Subtitle Edit (free desktop app, Windows)
Open the file, then Auto-translate. It can use Google Translate or DeepL with your own API key. Good if you translate a lot and want everything on your computer.
Option 3: paste into a document translator
For a short file you can rename it to .txt and use a document translator. Afterwards, check that the timecodes and blank lines survived; this is where most broken files come from.
Check before you publish
- Length on screen: translations are often longer than the original. Keep each subtitle to about 2 lines of ~42 characters, otherwise viewers cannot read it in time.
- Names and slang: machine translation is good at plain sentences and weaker at names, jokes and idioms. Skim the file.
- Encoding: save as UTF-8, especially for Arabic, Chinese, Hindi or Vietnamese, or you will see strange characters.
Two languages at once
For language learning, you may want the original and the translation together. The free bilingual subtitles tool merges two SRT files into one (SRT or ASS), no sign-up.
No SRT yet?
If the video has no subtitle file, create one first from the speech with the auto subtitle generator, and pick the translation language in the same step.