English to German video translator

Yes. German runs about a tenth longer than English and has long compounds, so it is laid out as subtitles on its own terms: up to 2 lines of about 42 characters, breaking only between words, each shown long enough to read.

A word like “Unabhängigkeitserklärung” fills more than half a line on its own, so the German can need more subtitles than the English for the same stretch of speech. Each one still begins when the English it translates is spoken.

German often splits a verb and sends part to the end: “The meeting is on October 16…” became “Das Treffen findet am 16. Oktober 2026 um 15:30 Uhr statt”. The German is cut into subtitles after translating, so each subtitle follows a German sentence, not the English one.

Formally. “Thank you all for coming today” became “Vielen Dank an alle, dass Sie heute gekommen sind”, with Sie, and “Please sit down, sir” became “Bitte setzen Sie sich, mein Herr”. Many German creators speak to viewers as du or ihr, so adjust a casual channel’s subtitles.

“October 16, 2026, at 3:30 p.m.” became “am 16. Oktober 2026 um 15:30 Uhr”: the day takes a full stop and the time runs on the 24-hour clock with “Uhr”. Exclamations keep the English “Wow”: “Wow! Das ist erstaunlich!”.

Names are left as the English transcript spelled them: “Dr. Patel and Maria Lopez will lead the session” became “Dr. Patel und Maria Lopez werden die Sitzung leiten”.

NoteOwl understands German and English on your Mac: it imports MP4 videos, transcribes them with unlimited transcription and saves SRT subtitles with each speaker’s name. If your video already has English subtitles, the subtitle translator keeps their timing.