Create Subtitles
Instructions for creating an .srt file for an oral history
Transcription versus Translation
Transcript refers to the text of your interview in the native language or languages spoken, while a translation is a literal translation of the video transcript. If you can, secure both a transcript and translation into an international language. You can do this in person after recording the video or by follow-up via email or phone.
Format
The ideal format for submitting transcripts and translations are .SRT files rather than loose text, because .SRT files sync automatically with most video and media players to create subtitles. Thankfully, .SRT files are easy to make. To create an .SRT file, open up your preferred text editor and divide your transcript or translation by the lines they would appear as subtitles.
For example:
“Hello, my name is Joana. I am from Tarragona and Catalan is my mother tongue. I also speak Spanish and English.”
Becomes:
1
00:00:01,00 → 00:00:03,00
Hello, my name is Joana.
2
00:00:03,03 → 00:00:11,00
I am from Tarragona
And Catalan is my mother tongue.
3
00:00:11,06 → 00:00:14,00
I also speak Spanish and English.
The above format adheres to the following two rules:
- Each subtitle is formatted with three line breaks:
- The numerical sequence counter : 1 , 2 , 3 , and so on.
- The opening and closing time markers , which are formatted as Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds and joined by → .
- The raw text of the subtitle.
2. Subtitles should contain fewer than 40 characters per line of text. You can use websites such as https://wordcounter.net to double check your lines.
When you’re done creating your .SRT file, simply save it with the file extension .srt .
Non-Latin Characters
.SRT files support any character set supported by unicode, so whether your transcript or translation uses the Cyrillic alphabet, Arabic script, or any other writing system, it will work with .srt formatting.
The next step is submitting your video and documents:
Join Our Subtitling Team
We use Amara to subtitle our videos. You can contribute to any of our videos through the Amara platform. Join our team!
If you’d like to donate to support the work of Wikitongues or if you’d like to get to know our work, please visit wikitongues.org. To watch our oral histories, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit wikitongues.org to submit a video.
