Translate an SRT or VTT subtitle file into Chinese on your own device. This page targets Simplified Chinese, the script used in mainland China and Singapore; for viewers in Taiwan or Hong Kong, switch the To list to Chinese (Traditional), a separate option. Timing is untouched: every cue keeps its start and end time. Chinese lines usually come out far shorter than the English they replace, so fitting text into its time slot is rarely a problem; consistency is the bigger risk. Each cue is translated on its own, so a name or a recurring term can be written with different characters in different scenes.
How it works
- Drop the .srt or .vtt in Chrome 138 or later. Simplified Chinese is preselected; pick Chinese (Traditional) under To if that is what your audience reads.
- Translate & download. Chrome downloads its Chinese language pack first if needed, then translates the file one cue at a time.
- Drop the result back in, switch to Convert and search the cue table for each main character’s name to check it is written the same way throughout. Fix any that differ, then download it again as SRT or VTT.
Questions
- Simplified or Traditional Chinese: which should I choose?
- Choose by where your viewers are. Simplified characters are standard in mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia; Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Both are offered here as separate targets, so pick the script before you translate. Vocabulary also differs between regions, so a viewer in Taiwan may still notice a mainland word choice written in Traditional characters.
- Why do Chinese subtitles show as garbled symbols in my player?
- The translated file is saved as UTF-8, which current players and browsers read correctly. Some older TVs and desktop players assume a regional encoding such as GB2312 or Big5 for subtitle files and turn UTF-8 text into nonsense. Set the player’s subtitle encoding to UTF-8 and the characters will display.
- Does my file get uploaded?
- No. The models and all processing run inside your browser on your own device. You can verify this yourself: open your browser’s DevTools, watch the Network tab, and process a file: there are no uploads. After the first visit most tools also work fully offline.
- What is a two-point resync?
- A fixed shift fixes subtitles that are uniformly early or late, but not ones that drift further out over the runtime (a frame-rate mismatch). Pin the first and last line to their correct moments and every cue between them is stretched linearly. That is the standard fix, done locally.
- How does on-device translation work?
- Recent Chromium browsers ship a built-in translator that downloads language packs and runs locally. Where your browser offers it, this tool uses it, subtitle text included, and nothing is sent to a service. Where it does not, the page says so instead of quietly uploading.
- Burned-in vs a subtitle file: which do I want?
- A separate .srt/.vtt can be toggled and edited, and players render it crisply, so prefer it where you control playback. Burn-in re-encodes the video with the text drawn into the frames: it plays everywhere and cannot be turned off.