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I would like to offer a translation to another user's video on YouTube. The original video is in Spanish and I would like to write a Hebrew translation that would be relevant to very few people.

The easiest way to do it would be downloading the original video, re-upload it and add the subtitles. This can be a problem for the original author.

Is there any other, more elegant way to do this?

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7 Answers 7

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Currently you cannot add a subtitle/caption track to someone else's video.

However, you can prepare the caption/subtitle file for the video and then share it the author so they can add it to the video (it's simple and I don't think he or she would object since subtitles do not have to be turned on by default).

Since it will be in another language as the video's audio track (and not in English either) you will have to prepare a time-coded subtitle script (or caption file). There are a number of articles about that available online including a good one to start with on Youtube help site.

Overall guidelines on preparing and adding subtitles to Youtube are available here.

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I have found Amara UniversalSubtitles service recently that is doing just that. There were some other similar startups before but it seems they got discontinued.

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  • 2
    Its UI is pretty good!
    – RomanSt
    Mar 31, 2013 at 2:14
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    I just hope youtube buy them to power up collaborative subtitling! Amara rocks from long time already.
    – cregox
    May 5, 2014 at 15:59
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As @wil93 pointed out, now anyone can create online and contribute his own subtitles to some videos.

You could ask the owner to activate that option of community contribution for that video, some videos or all of his videos at once as explained here.

Then anyone could create the subtitles oneline, with youtube tools, in the language they chose. Or upload a subtitles file.

You can try it (don't save! ;) ) with the real example @wil93 gave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AAdKl1UYZs

EDIT: I see it was more or less answered here, but I consider both answers bring complementary information.

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I have created a chrome extension which lets you drag and drop SRT file on any youtube video. You can check it out here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/subtitles-for-youtube/oanhbddbfkjaphdibnebkklpplclomal

Now its updated to search and fetch subtitles directly from Amara and OpenSubtitles right there from the YouTube interface. Do check it out.

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    In fact, the OP as I assume wants to publish his subtitle for others, rather than simply seeing it on the video. So, this might not be the answer to the question, the the add-on is good effort
    – Mehdi Haghgoo
    Sep 23, 2015 at 9:31
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Try this Youtube Subtitles add-on for Chrome.

Use this extension to add drag and drop subtitles to any youtube video
This extension lets you add subtitles to any video you are watching on YouTube. Just drag and drop .SRT file or zipped .SRT file for your movie on to the video and the subtitles will start showing up.

Subtitles shown under video

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  • 2
    Could you say a bit more?
    – batpigandme
    Jun 17, 2013 at 11:02
  • Make sure your youtube URL looks like this for above chrome extension www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AW7_xtt3h8k
    – Kris
    Sep 23, 2013 at 3:57
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    This shouldn't be the accepted answer; it doesn't answer the question.
    – Danny Beckett
    Mar 10, 2014 at 0:11
  • Is this the only solution? That sucks!
    – Mehdi Haghgoo
    Sep 23, 2015 at 9:28
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Some bigger channels won't allow it, but if they do you can add your own subtitles in whatever language you want here's how...

First, go to the bottom right of the video and click on the settings

enter image description here

Then press Subtitles/CC where you should see this screen

enter image description here

Once you are there press on the Add Subtitles/CC and you should get to a new tab where you see this

enter image description here

It will say to start with entering the language and then you can start adding subtitles to the video,

Not every channel allows this, and it might take time until it fully uploads to the video but this is the method to do so.

When adding the subtitles you will see this in the screen...

enter image description here

And this to publish your contribution

enter image description here

If there is no ability to contribute to the subtitles then it will look like this...

enter image description here

Where it just doesn't show the ability to add subtitles at all

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  • "Community contributions will be discontinued across all channels after September 28, 2020. Community contributions allowed viewers to add closed captions, subtitles, and title/descriptions to videos. This feature was rarely used and had problems with spam/abuse so we’re removing them to focus on other creator tools."
    – Cees Timmerman
    Dec 9, 2020 at 23:37
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Try this script: https://github.com/siloor/youtube.external.subtitle

It won't load the video into another player, so there won't be any legal issues. Also the other features of YouTube remain still accessible.

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