Generate English subtitles for your Icelandic videos

Searching a Icelandic transcript

Icelandic 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 English 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.

How Icelandic audio becomes English subtitles

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

Why translate Icelandic video into English

Icelandic is spoken principally in Iceland; English in worldwide. A English 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 Icelandic audio

Icelandic uses two letters no other living language does — þ and ð — and both are ordinary parts of words rather than decoration, so check your player renders them. It also tends to coin native words where other languages borrow, which means technical vocabulary is less predictable from English.

About the English subtitles

English has a wider spread of accents than any other language here, and the gap between spelling and pronunciation means recognition leans on context rather than sound alone. Names and technical terms are where errors concentrate, because those are exactly the words context cannot predict.

What an Icelandic to English subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Icelandic speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Icelandic 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
Good morning, everyone.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
Let's start with the first question.

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
I'll share the details in a moment.

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
That's all for today.

What to check before publishing

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