Translate an SRT or VTT file into French in your browser. Chrome’s on-device translator handles the text, every cue keeps its original start and end time, and the French file downloads in the format you started with. Expect tu and vous to be inconsistent. A human translator decides once how two characters address each other and sticks to it. Here each cue is translated on its own, without the lines around it, so that choice is made again on every line and can switch in the middle of a conversation. French also tends to run longer than English, so read the fast scenes too.
How it works
- Drop the .srt or .vtt in Chrome 138 or later. French is preselected under To, and the source language is detected for you.
- Translate & download. The French file arrives with the same number of cues at the same times, named after the original with -translated added.
- To make the register consistent, drop the French file back in, switch to Convert and search the cue table for vous and tu. Fix the stray lines, then download it in the format you need.
Questions
- Will the French translation use tu or vous?
- Whichever the translator picks for each line, and it picks line by line. English you gives it no clue, and because cues are translated separately it cannot remember what it chose a moment ago, so expect a mix in dialogue. Decide per relationship which form is right, vous with strangers and superiors, tu between friends and family, and correct the lines that break it.
- Does it follow French punctuation rules?
- The tool does not add or remove characters itself; the punctuation is whatever the translator returns. French typography puts a space before ? ! : and ; and uses « » for quotations. If your style guide requires those and a line lacks them, correct it in the cue table before you publish.
- 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.