Translate subtitles to Portuguese

Brazilian. In our test, “Can you send me the report before Friday?” became “Você pode me enviar o relatório antes de sexta-feira?”: você, with the pronoun before the verb, as Brazilians say it. Viewers in Portugal would expect “Pode enviar-me…?”.

Everyday vocabulary can differ between the two as well, so a channel aimed at Portugal should give the file a read with that audience in mind. For viewers in Brazil, it’s ready as it comes.

Yes. Portuguese runs a little longer than English, and every subtitle keeps its original start and end, so a longer translation simply fills its lines more fully. It never spills into an extra line or an extra subtitle.

Each line aims for 42 characters and breaks between words at the most balanced point, so a viewer reading at about 17 characters a second gets two even lines rather than one long line over a short one.

Yes, and it uses whatever English gives it. “Our doctor said she would call back tomorrow” came back as “Nossa médica disse que ligaria de volta amanhã”: “she” made the doctor a woman. Mixed groups take the masculine plural: “Os professores estavam cansados”.

The translator sees only text, never the speaker. “Thank you all for coming today” became “Obrigado a todos por virem hoje”, the thanks a man gives; a woman says “obrigada”, so check thank-yous and adjectives that describe whoever is talking.

NoteOwl understands Portuguese on your Mac: it transcribes Portuguese recordings with unlimited transcription, tells the speakers apart and saves SRT subtitles with their names. For subtitles of Portuguese speech taken from a video, use the Portuguese subtitle generator.