The ABCs of Subtitling: A Glossary of Key Terms You Should Know

In the age of video content, subtitling has become a crucial tool for content creators, marketers, and educators. Whether it’s a YouTube tutorial, an online course, or a global marketing campaign, subtitling ensures your content is understood by a wider audience, across languages and accessibility needs. But the world of subtitling comes with its own terminology, which can be confusing for beginners. To help you navigate it, we’ve compiled the ABCs of subtitling—a glossary of key terms every content creator should know.

Accuracy: The precision with which subtitles reflect the spoken dialogue or content. High accuracy is essential for comprehension and credibility. Audio Description: A narration of visual elements in a video, often included for visually impaired viewers. While not strictly subtitles, it complements subtitling for accessibility.

Burned-in Subtitles: Subtitles that are permanently embedded in the video and cannot be turned off. Also called open captions. Brevity: Subtitles must be concise to ensure readability. Long sentences are broken down to fit on screen comfortably. Closed Captions (CC): Subtitles that can be toggled on or off by the viewer, often including sound effects and speaker identification. Cueing: The process of timing subtitles to appear and disappear in sync with the audio.

Dialogue: The spoken words in a video that are transcribed for subtitles. Duration: The time each subtitle remains on screen, which should allow viewers enough time to read comfortably.

Encoding: The process of formatting subtitles so that video players can recognize and display them correctly. Font and Style: The choice of typeface, size, color, and background for subtitles to ensure readability across devices. Localization: Adapting subtitles to fit the language, culture, and context of a specific audience, not just translating word-for-word. Line Breaks: Strategic breaking of subtitle text into two or more lines for better readability.

Reading Speed: Measured in characters per second (CPS), this ensures subtitles are displayed long enough for viewers to read comfortably. Real-Time Subtitling: Generating subtitles live during broadcasts or webinars, often using speech recognition technology. Subtitling Software: Tools used to create, edit, and sync subtitles, such as Aegisub, Subtitle Workshop, or Kapwing. Synchronization: Ensuring subtitles appear exactly when the corresponding dialogue is spoken.

Conclusion

Understanding subtitling terminology is essential for content creators who want to produce professional, accessible, and engaging video content. Knowing the difference between closed captions, burned-in subtitles, and translation subtitles, or mastering concepts like cueing, synchronization, and reading speed, can make your videos more impactful and inclusive. Subtitling isn’t just a technical necessity—it’s a way to reach a broader audience, improve engagement, and enhance accessibility. Familiarize yourself with these terms, and you’ll be better equipped to create high-quality, viewer-friendly video content.