Is there a place in the forum to discuss and avoid controversy? It would be healthier to help each other. Or, in the help section, include how to avoid typos during subtitling as a reminder.
Typos (Typographical errors): Spelling errors, such as "tommorrow" instead of "tomorrow," "assesment" for "assessment," or "preety" instead of "pretty".
Homophones and look-alike words: Confusing words that sound the same or similar but have different spellings and meanings, such as "their/there/they're," "to/too/two," or "you/your".
Capitalization errors: Incorrect use of capitalization, especially at the start of sentences, in proper names, or in titles.
Punctuation errors: Insufficient or incorrect punctuation (e.g., periods, commas, question marks), which can make sentences confusing or disrupt the reading pace.
Inconsistency: Lack of consistency in capitalization, hyphenation, or the spelling of proper nouns and technical terms.
Unnatural line breaks: Breaking up sentences or ideas in the middle, which makes the text difficult to follow.
Overuse of italics or bolding: Using too much formatting for emphasis can be distracting to the reader.
Missing or incorrect speaker identification: Forgetting to indicate who is speaking, especially if the person is off-screen.
Phonetic transcription: In live subtitling, it is common to see words written as they sound (phonetic transcription) instead of the correct spelling, especially with proper names or jargon.
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how to avoid typos during subtitling as a reminder.
how to avoid typos during subtitling as a reminder.
2025-10-23 01:17:57
What needs to be avoided when doing subtitling?
2025-10-23 01:48:35
Subtitling errors are sometimes funny and harder to ignore. A misspelled word is enough to offend anyone and change the entire meaning of what you wanted to say. Therefore, its important that correct subtitling is used for translating a speech and displaying it as text on the screen.
Those who are unfamiliar with subtitling would likely assume that it is an easy process. There would be a software where you just need to put the text and then it will automatically set the timings and split the sentences? Is it that simple? No.
The reality of subtitles is not as simple as many of you might think. It needs proper skill and knowledge to observe wrong subtitling signs. Many common mistakes come, again and again, you just need to concentrate a bit more to reduce the friction.
Here, we have listed some of the subtitling errors you should know.
Common Errors in Subtitling
1. Mismatch of Text with the Style of Voice
In a video, when there are many actors of the same age, you will notice that everyone has the same speaking style. This means that the text displayed on the screen should also match their style. It should not look off.
For example, if a video includes only children then your subtitling should have the same tone or intent. Too formal vocabulary in such a video will make less sense.
If there are different characters, speaking a different language, you should concentrate on the style to help the audience identify the language differences and relate to the situation they see. If you create videos for the social platform, you can easily get worthwhile subtitling For Youtube channel too.
2. Wrong Punctuation
To keep! and? marks in the subtitle are very important to convey a clear meaning. Without using punctuations, you will only make senseless sentences and leave viewers in a confused state. If you want to make the character clearly understood by the audience, punctuation is very important.
Grammar fluency is a must to avoid errors and enhance the quality of subtitles.
3. Maintaining an Unwanted Foreign Sense
If you want to create translated subtitles, you need to jump from one language to another and deal with many cultural differences. Keeping unshared information will increase the chances of your audience getting confused. Due to the differences in the language and culture, it is not possible to maintain the same style in everything.
The subtitling expert should find a simplified and correct word that’s equally meaningful as the original language. Here, you’ll definitely need the assistance of professionals providing reliable subtitling.
4. Keeping Short Time Gap Between Subtitles
It’s the most common error that many makes. It’s an issue that can be found in most of the videos available on the internet. Not everyone has a good speed of reading lines within no time. Generally, humans take longer to read in comparison to speak. When adding subtitles to a video, make sure that the time gap is above 2 seconds.
Keeping the time gap short between subtitles will leave your audience frustrated and they will likely switch to your competitors. Especially the deaf viewers will find it difficult to consume any video if you are keeping subtitles short. Therefore, make sure there is enough gap so that viewers can read peacefully without any hurry.
5. Unreadable Texts
How the audience will read if the text is too small or in the wrong color? Keeping in mind that many viewers watch videos from their phones, you must focus on such minor details. It will enhance the user experience even more.
When you are deciding on the color of the text, the background should also be taken into account. Therefore, avoid:
✓ White text on white background
✓ Purple text on Red background
✓ Light text on a dark background
Good subtitling can easily get ignored if it’s not properly visible because of the text size or the background color. Even a minor mistake can make a huge difference.
Those who are unfamiliar with subtitling would likely assume that it is an easy process. There would be a software where you just need to put the text and then it will automatically set the timings and split the sentences? Is it that simple? No.
The reality of subtitles is not as simple as many of you might think. It needs proper skill and knowledge to observe wrong subtitling signs. Many common mistakes come, again and again, you just need to concentrate a bit more to reduce the friction.
Here, we have listed some of the subtitling errors you should know.
Common Errors in Subtitling
1. Mismatch of Text with the Style of Voice
In a video, when there are many actors of the same age, you will notice that everyone has the same speaking style. This means that the text displayed on the screen should also match their style. It should not look off.
For example, if a video includes only children then your subtitling should have the same tone or intent. Too formal vocabulary in such a video will make less sense.
If there are different characters, speaking a different language, you should concentrate on the style to help the audience identify the language differences and relate to the situation they see. If you create videos for the social platform, you can easily get worthwhile subtitling For Youtube channel too.
2. Wrong Punctuation
To keep! and? marks in the subtitle are very important to convey a clear meaning. Without using punctuations, you will only make senseless sentences and leave viewers in a confused state. If you want to make the character clearly understood by the audience, punctuation is very important.
Grammar fluency is a must to avoid errors and enhance the quality of subtitles.
3. Maintaining an Unwanted Foreign Sense
If you want to create translated subtitles, you need to jump from one language to another and deal with many cultural differences. Keeping unshared information will increase the chances of your audience getting confused. Due to the differences in the language and culture, it is not possible to maintain the same style in everything.
The subtitling expert should find a simplified and correct word that’s equally meaningful as the original language. Here, you’ll definitely need the assistance of professionals providing reliable subtitling.
4. Keeping Short Time Gap Between Subtitles
It’s the most common error that many makes. It’s an issue that can be found in most of the videos available on the internet. Not everyone has a good speed of reading lines within no time. Generally, humans take longer to read in comparison to speak. When adding subtitles to a video, make sure that the time gap is above 2 seconds.
Keeping the time gap short between subtitles will leave your audience frustrated and they will likely switch to your competitors. Especially the deaf viewers will find it difficult to consume any video if you are keeping subtitles short. Therefore, make sure there is enough gap so that viewers can read peacefully without any hurry.
5. Unreadable Texts
How the audience will read if the text is too small or in the wrong color? Keeping in mind that many viewers watch videos from their phones, you must focus on such minor details. It will enhance the user experience even more.
When you are deciding on the color of the text, the background should also be taken into account. Therefore, avoid:
✓ White text on white background
✓ Purple text on Red background
✓ Light text on a dark background
Good subtitling can easily get ignored if it’s not properly visible because of the text size or the background color. Even a minor mistake can make a huge difference.
Re: What needs to be avoided when doing subtitling?
Thank you for the guide and helpful tips.
Re: What needs to be avoided when doing subtitling?
2025-10-24 07:12:55
4. Keeping Short Time Gap Between Subtitles
I think this should be expanded to a general "matching display time to subtitle word length". I find this to be the hardest to do. Especially when subtitling a quick back and forth conversation. Keeping the gaps short is not much of a problem. It's finding enough time for the viewer to read a subtitle before the next subtitle needs to be displayed to keep in sync with the video.
I'm trying to fixup AI translated videos so have to guess a lot about the sync.
Re: What needs to be avoided when doing subtitling?
In reply to nyangleh:
I agree.
When it happens, and if the sentences are short, I merge it with the previous one with dialog dashes:
And sometimes, even if the sentences are not that short, I merge them anyway. The result may be awful (like 3 full lines), but I get together with this reminder: "hey, it's just a fansub for porn... maybe the perfection is not needed"
Keeping the gaps short is not much of a problem. It's finding enough time for the viewer to read a subtitle before the next subtitle needs to be displayed to keep in sync with the video.
I agree.
When it happens, and if the sentences are short, I merge it with the previous one with dialog dashes:
- I was just trying to explain the...
- Oh my God!
And sometimes, even if the sentences are not that short, I merge them anyway. The result may be awful (like 3 full lines), but I get together with this reminder: "hey, it's just a fansub for porn... maybe the perfection is not needed"
Keeping gaps short
The site subtitlefix.com also can check your .SRT files for timing gaps and lists lines where the gaps are less than half a second.
Also useful is the translator in this site (Thanks, Truc) as the first thing it does is check the timings lines for errors.
SRT files are very unforgiving, so if there's a typo in the timing line, it won't display it.
Also useful is the translator in this site (Thanks, Truc) as the first thing it does is check the timings lines for errors.
SRT files are very unforgiving, so if there's a typo in the timing line, it won't display it.
