Add Dutch Subtitles to a Video

Netherlands, Flanders, or both?

Dutch is one written language with two large audiences. Television in both the Netherlands and Flanders has long subtitled foreign programmes rather than dubbing them, so most adult viewers read subtitles quickly and spot a sloppy one immediately. That is good news for subtitled video and a reason to take the review seriously.

The written standard is shared, but everyday vocabulary differs. A Flemish viewer says gsm where someone in the Netherlands says mobiel, frieten where the other says patat, and goesting for zin. Flemish speech also uses ge and gij where Netherlands Dutch uses je and jij. The "Subtitle language" menu has a single Dutch option, so translated lines come out in standard Dutch that reads fine in both countries but may lean toward Netherlands wording. If your audience is specifically Flemish, read the track with that in mind. Strong regional accents from either side need more correction after transcription. The trade-offs of writing for one region or both are discussed in translating video for regional audiences.

How to add Dutch subtitles, start to finish

1. Click the launcher on this page and pick your video file from your computer.
2. Decide where the text comes from: AI from the audio, which needs a Google sign-in, or "Import SRT / VTT" if a translator has supplied a Dutch file.
3. For AI, leave "Subtitle language" on auto-detect when people speak Dutch; choose Dutch when they speak English, German, French or another supported language.
4. Start "AI subtitles" and wait for the lines. Only the compressed audio goes to the server; the video stays on your machine.
5. Watch with the line list beside the preview. Click any line to change its words, and fix timing by dragging it on the timeline or typing exact start and end times.
6. In the Style tab, pick a preset, set font and size, and switch on "Show safe area" if the video is vertical.
7. Click "Render video", start the render, and download the file ending in -subtitled.mp4.

A 25-minute episode costs 25 credits (2.5¢) to transcribe. Registered accounts also receive 10 free credits a day, enough for a ten-minute video, and they accumulate through the month.

The IJ at the start of a sentence

Dutch treats ij as one letter when it comes to capitals. A sentence starts with IJs, not Ijs; the lake is the IJsselmeer and the country is IJsland. Transcripts, autocorrect and translators who aren't Dutch regularly produce the half-capitalised version, and Dutch readers see it at once. Scan every line that opens with ij. With UPPERCASE switched on the whole word becomes IJS anyway, so the error only shows in normal case.

The other marks are routine: the diaeresis in België, ruïne and zeeën, and the stress accent that separates één (one) from een (a). They belong to the basic Latin set every bundled font contains, so no special font choice is needed.

Contractions, compounds and hyphens

Spoken Dutch is full of contractions: m'n, z'n, 't, 's ochtends. Decide on a policy before you start correcting. Informal vlogs can keep them as spoken; corporate and educational video usually reads better with mijn, zijn and het written out. Either is fine, but a mix within one video looks undecided.

Compounds can get long, such as ziektekostenverzekering or arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering. Where two vowels would collide, Dutch inserts a hyphen (zee-egel, auto-ongeluk), and since the editor breaks lines only at spaces, those hyphenated words stay in one piece. A single very long compound still dominates a 42-character line; if the wrap looks awkward, split the subtitle into two at the playhead. German has the same problem in a stronger form, and German subtitles goes deeper into handling it.

Translating into Dutch

English to Dutch is a short distance, and that creates its own trap. Dutch has absorbed many English words, such as meeting, deadline, feedback and team, and real Dutch speakers use them. A translation can render them in formal Dutch (vergadering, uiterste termijn) where your audience would simply say the English word. Choose the version your viewers actually use, and keep it consistent.

Watch the splits too. Translated subtitles are divided by length, so a subtitle can end on de, het or een and leave its noun for the next line. Merge the pair when the combined line fits and the timing allows. Timing on translated lines is approximate, so line up the first word of each against the speech. For a transcript of Dutch speech instead of subtitles, use Dutch video to text; to replace the voice with Dutch, the Dutch video translator does AI dubbing.

Common fixes

• An SRT made for a different edit runs early or late throughout: "Shift all by" moves every line at once.
• A sentence chopped across two subtitles: Merge joins the selected line with the next.
• A subtitle crowded into two full rows: Split cuts it at the playhead into two timed lines.
• Two lines overlap: the editor marks both, and dragging the end of the first fixes it.
• Place names with leading apostrophes, such as 's-Hertogenbosch, come out of transcription as Den Bosch or misspelled. Decide which form you want and use it everywhere.
• A word heard wrong under background music: retype it. Editing subtitles on a video covers the line list and timeline in detail.

A file as well as the MP4

The rendered MP4 shows the Dutch subtitles everywhere it plays, including WhatsApp and social feeds that ignore subtitle files. Export SRT or VTT from the same session as well. It lets viewers switch subtitles off on YouTube, which handles subtitle files as described in YouTube video subtitles, and gives you an editable copy if a correction comes in later; reopen it in the online SRT editor. When you only need the file and never the burned-in video, the AI subtitle generator is the quicker route.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens

MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode

Subtitles from

AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in

You download

An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files

Cost

Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day

Privacy

The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery

Rendering needs

Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser