There was a time when people only watched movies and TV shows in their native language. As a result, much of the content was limited to a single country rather than being global. With the introduction of the Internet, however, things changed, and even American children began watching anime made in Japan, thanks to the subtitles. Subtitles can be written by anyone, and the language in which they are written does not have to be your native language.
However, if you search for movies on the Internet, you will discover that the majority of them are not available in your native language, but their subtitles can be easily found in your native language, making it easier for you to understand the dialogues of the movie with ease. The rise of streaming services can be attributed to the explosion of subtitles, which has resulted in such widespread acceptance of these services.Also, with the introduction of subtitles, people get to enjoy world cinema and get to educate themselves about the different types of culture and lifestyle that used to be alien to them in the early days.
One of the great examples of subtitles making a movie global is the movie named Parasite, which was produced in South Korea, and all the dialogues were in the Korean language. But with the help of subtitles, this movie became popular worldwide and was able to win the Oscar for the best motion picture award for 2020. So today, we are going to show you some of the best tools and applications that you can use to download subtitles for your favourite movies from the Internet.
What are Subtitles?
The film we discussed in the introduction was directed by Korean director Joon Ho, and as he accepted his award in front of the Golden Globe audience, he said, “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many amazing films.” We have to agree with this statement; the 1-inch bar at the bottom of the screen is where you will see your movie’s subtitles. A subtitle accomplishes much more than simply conveying information about what the characters are attempting to say in the film. However, it also shows the smallest movements of the face, such as breathing, crying, happiness, and so on.
Let’s talk about the word subtitle first. The word has two parts; the first one is “sub,” which means “below,” and then there is the title. So the subtitle is the line of text at the bottom of the screen that interacts with the video you’re watching and allows you to translate the spoken language of the movie into another language in which you’re comfortable.
Origin of Subtitles
Subtitles and closed captions both have the same exact origin; both were invented to help deaf people understand what they are seeing. In the year 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, which made it mandatory for public television to have captions on their channels.
With the introduction of closed captions, people are now able to read what’s being said on TV. This makes it easier for the viewer to differentiate who is talking and what they are talking about. The captions have made the video content accessible to almost everyone in the world. With this invention, a lot of people have come to realise that they want to read the audio instead of just listening to it. Thus, even if you are in the middle of a busy office or sitting in the subway, you can enjoy the TV show that you were streaming even without listening to its audio at all.
Is there any difference between Closed Captions & Subtitles
When it comes to using these terminologies, we most of the time use them interchangeably, but in truth, these two terms are pretty varied in different ways.
Captions
- Let’s start with captions, and captions are the lines of the text which is a transcription of what is being said on a video, movie or program.
- They were developed to help deaf people or the ones that have a hard hearing to understand the spoken words and help them to know the context of the program which they are watching.
- In the modern world, captions are used to define any on-screen text.
- The other meaning of captions is the text which gets to appear below the photos in publications and other forms of literary works.
Subtitles
- Subtitles work as translated captions of audio files. You can see them in foreign language films, motion pictures, animated movies and even in a television program.
- Subtitles of a movie can be available in a number of languages, and a user can choose the language in which they want to see the subtitles.
- Most of the multi-streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ are using subtitles to make it easier for their users to understand what’s being said in the movie.
- The second meaning of subtitles is a longer title that is found in literary works such as books, essays, and other written documents.
How to get Subtitles?
There are a number of online websites and tools which will provide you with the subtitles for your favorite TV shows and movies. So it is not hard to find a subtitle in your native language. As long as the subtitles can be written in English, you are good to go. A study has shown that more than 85% of the people who watch videos on Facebook watch them without the audio and rely on subtitles to understand the video.
Rules and Guidelines for Making Subtitles?
You might think there is no standard for writing subtitles, but you’re mistaken; the subtitles that you will be creating the need to be accessible and easy to use for the content consumer. Each platform has its own standard, and the content creator has to adhere to those guidelines and rules when creating the subtitles for their content. Given below are the best practices that you should follow to add subtitles to your videos.
- First, the subtitle text should always be up to 1 to 2 lines on the screen time, and it should not be overpowering and take a lot of space on the screen. 20% of the screen is ideal for the subtitles.
- Keep the length of each word below 32 characters.
- Each line of the subtitle must have an onscreen time of at least 3 seconds to 7 seconds, depending on the length and the speed of the dialogue.
- Keep the text aligned to the left, it should never be on the right, and centre alignment is not an ideal option.
- In addition to this, one of the most important things to take care of is the tsync time of the captions to the audio.
- Place the subtitles on the screen in such a way that it doesn’t block the content on the screen and is still easily visible to the viewer. One tip we can give you is that place the subtitles at the chin of the video where the black bar is present.
- Furthermore, use both uppercase and lowercase letters, also don’t write in all caps.
- Likewise, use easy-to-read fonts and sizes, so it is easier for the viewer to read them from a distance.
- Lastly, when you want to describe the action taken by the character or the surrounding sound, use square brackets such as [Music] [Laughter].
Best Subtitles Download Sites in 2022
Well, the above part has shown you the importance of subtitles and how you should be creating subtitles if you need to. So, now we move forward and talk about the websites from where you can easily download subtitles for free and use them in the video or a movie that you want to watch.
1. YIFY Subtitles
This is one of the best and most common websites to download subtitles for the latest movies and TV shows. When you search for the subtitle for a specific movie, this website is undoubtedly going to come on the SERP, and that too is on the top 3 positions of the results page. The user interface of the website is pretty easy to navigate and gives the user dark mode for ease. You can find subtitles in various languages with an extensive range of movies at your disposal to download for free. In addition to this, you can stream the movies on Netflix from the website with no hassle.
Furthermore, most of the websites are add-free and don’t have annoying pop-ups. A user can select the movie based on the genre, year and type of video. Lastly, you can explore this website on your browser without having to sign up or sign in on it, which is one of the most remarkable features of this website.
2. OpenSubtitles
This website claims to have 5 million movie collections stored on its server, and without a doubt, this number is considered to be the biggest on the Internet, even by 2021 standards. This website is the first option you should try when you are searching for the subtitles of a movie.
When it comes to providing subtitles in different languages, this site is beneficial as it gives users the ability to download subtitles with different language preferences. On the other hand, this website’s UI can be displayed in 50 different languages, making it a truly international website that can be accessed and read by everyone.
When you are searching for the subtitle of the movie, it will come with the name of the movie, the upload date, comments and with the overall rating of that subtitle file. This will help users to understand the quality of the subtitle and the issues related to it. The advanced search options let you choose the age, format, rating and other things when searching for the subtitles. Lastly, there is a great community forum that you can join, which discusses the latest trends in the movies along with tips on how to find the best subtitles for your movie.
3. Podnapisi
This website will welcome new users with open arms due to its intuitive user interface. The interface is much more comprehensive, and everything that you need is available within reach. On the other hand, one of the best features that we really loved is that it is constantly getting updated with new subtitles every week to the latest movies and the TV series. As a result, when you are on the website, you get to see the subtitles of the latest releases, which you can download for free.
The search filter is excellent, and you will be able to search for the subtitles in mere seconds after writing the name of the movie in the search bar. The search can be filtered by the basics of year, genre, and season number. But here’s a bummer for us; when we looked at the website, we were not able to find many of the old classic’s subtitles, and that is one of the hard truths about this website: you are not going to find tons of subtitles on this website. Surely all the new releases will be present, but it doesn’t have the most extensive library of subtitles. But it has a language filter that will help you show the subtitles in your preferred language, along with the use of an intelligent AI algorithm.
4. Subs4free
When a website has a keyword free in its name, a lot of people become skeptical about it as to whether they should open the website or not. But Subs4free is a website that is entirely free from any malware and provides users with a great list of subtitles that are available in various languages. All the subtitles which are present on the website are in detailed resolution, and you can find even the hardest of subtitles with ease. There’s not much to say about this website as it is almost perfect in every way possible; from the subtitle library to the user interface, everything is developed with the user’s intention in mind.
5. BollyNook
As you can probably guess by the name of this website, you are going to find the subtitles of movies that are made in Bollywood, which is located in India. This website aims to be a one-stop-shop for all those people in the world who are looking for subtitles for Bollywood movies. You can find the subtitles for the Bollywood movies in English, Arabic, Dutch, French, and other languages. You can search the subtitles by the year and the genre. On the other hand, in addition to the subtitles, you can also find the lyrics of the songs which are present in the movies.
Bollywood has a lot of songs in each movie. It doesn’t matter if the movie is a romantic comedy or a horror movie, it will have some songs in it. Also, these songs are pretty catchy, so a lot of people do want to understand the meaning of the songs and learn their lyrics. So, with the help of this website, a user can actually understand the meaning of the song and learn its lyrics.
6. Subscene
Well, this website allows you to download and upload the subtitles on the same platform, so you are not only helping yourself with the subtitles, but you are also helping others if you have created the subtitles. Subscene is more of an online community than a website that you only use to download the subtitles. This website has a large library of subtitles for both new and old movies.
If there is a movie whose subtitles you are not able to find on the website, you can add them to the special request, and someone from the community will help you out in attaining them. Also, it has a rating system, and each subtitle file is rated by the community so you can see which of the subtitles are good enough to be downloaded.
7. Addic7ed
Well, there is a reason why this website is at the bottom half of our list, and the main reason why we have given it a number 7th position is because of its UI, which is quite garish-looking. Apart from that, this website will provide you with subtitles for almost every movie whose name you put into its search bar. When you visit the website, you can easily set your preferred language for the subtitle, and the search result will only show the list of subtitles that are present in your preferred language.
Besides this, you will also get a forum on which you can post your queries about the latest movies’ subtitles and when they will be available, and someone from the community will help you out. One of the cool features of this website was its ability to give users a preview of the subtitles before they could download them. If you are a registered member, you can even make changes to the subtitles and correct them if you like.
8. DIVX Subtitles
The name is difficult to pronounce, and it definitely conjures up images of the early 2000s.But even in 2021, this website is running well and helping people get the subtitles that they want. In addition to this, it has a particular folder for the old releases, so if you are a fan of classics, you can help yourself by attaining the subtitles for them. To search for the movie on this website, you can add in the keyword, and the search engine will provide you with accurate results in no time.
A lot of subtitles that are available on this website are in non-English and for non-English language movies, so it’s the right place for those who are looking to watch movies of other native languages like Spanish, German, Russian and others.
9. Subtitles.hr
This website will make it easy for you to browse the subtitles of your favourite movie with ease. In addition to this, Subtitles.hr is also available in various languages and gives users the functionality to filter out the subtitles based on the movie’s year of release and the date of the subtitles uploaded. On the other hand, it also makes it possible for the user to search for the subtitles for a specific character.
10. Subtitle Seeker
The last website on our list is Subtitle Seeker, which has an old user interface, but if you look behind the user interface, you will see how large of a subtitle library this website houses. This website is an excellent resource for locating subtitles for both new and old film releases. On the homepage, you’ll see all of the most recent subtitles that have been loaded, which are usually for movies that were released in the previous month.
There are no filters present in the search option, so when you search for the subtitle, you will get a list of all the subtitles which are available in different languages. As a result, the search results are not too accurate sometimes. But the downloading process of the website is relatively easy as you can choose to download the file in SRT format or you can go with the Zip format.