Easily Translate a Movie to Another Language with Subtitles

Easily add subtitles or closed-captioning to any video

Written by Travis Boylls

Last Updated: May 22, 2023

This wikiHow teaches you one of the easiest ways to translate or add subtitles to a movie. If you downloaded a movie that's in the MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, MKV, or other video file format, you can easily add subtitles in your preferred language.

Steps

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1
Download the movie you want to translate. This works best if you download the video file to your computer. If you have the video on a DVD, you can rip it to your computer. You can also download streaming videos using a variety of apps and sites. If all else fails, you can download videos using torrents.
- Be aware that using torrents to download copyright videos is illegal in most countries. Use torrents at your own risk.
2
Find out the frame rate for the movie you want to translate. Use the following steps to find out the frame rate for a video file you have saved on your computer:
- Right-click the movie you want to translate.
- Click Properties.
- Go to the Details tab.
- Note the frame rate.
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3
Go to a subtitle source site. The following are websites you can use to download movie subtitle sources:
4
Search for the movie you want to translate. Most subtitle source sites have a search bar at the top of the screen. Use the search bar to search for subtitles to a movie.
- If you don't find it, try other websites, or search it directly from Google for the name of the movie and "subtitles."
- YouTube can automatically generate a transcript for most videos, and you can download subtitles from YouTube videos.
5
Click a subtitle in the language you want to translate a movie to. Sites like Subscene have subtitle files in a variety of languages. Click a subtitle file from the language you want to translate. This displays the download page.
- Make sure the file you download is from the same year as the video release, if available.
6
Check the frame rate for the subtitles. On websites like Subscene, you can click Subtitle details on the download page to check the details of the subtitle file, including its frame rate.
- Not all subtitle files have the frame rate listed.
Click the Download button to download the subtitle file. This will most likely download the subtitle file in Subrip (.srt), Sub (.sub), or Text (.txt) format in a zip file. These files are used to embed subtitles in movies.^{[1]
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Use an archive program like WinRAR or 7-Zip to extract the ".srt" file to the same folder as your video.
This will allow you to select the subtitle in the subtitle channel menu in you media players.
You can use any media player that supports subtitles and closed captioning.
Open the subtitle menu in your media player and enable subtitles. Then select the language you select from the list from the language options. This will allow you to watch the video with the subtitles you downloaded.

Community Q&A

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Question

How do I translate a movie in Russian?

Community Answer

If you are on your PC, turn on captions and copy them then on google, search "Russian translator" then paste those words you copied into the box.

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Why is it that am writing the name of my movie in the subscene search and it is not showing?

Community Answer

Try exiting or closing the movie (even just temporarily) and entering in your search the main search bar. Computers and electronic devices are not 100% accurate every time so make sure to consider this when something electronic isn't doing what it should be doing.

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Tips

You can also edit subtitle files using a text editor like NotePad or TextEdit, or a subtitle editor program like Aegisub.

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