Lecture Video Translator

Why it helps

International students often follow lectures in a second language, and subtitles compete with slides for attention. A translated voice frees your eyes for the board.

Because mydubly never uploads the video, recorded lectures with students in shot stay on your device — only the audio is processed, then deleted.

Step by step

1. Download the lecture MP4 from your course platform.
2. Choose your language and a voice — a narrator voice suits long lectures.
3. Download the translated MP4 to watch offline, plus both transcripts for revision.

Tips

• Technical vocabulary may be translated into everyday words; keep the original transcript open to see the exact term the lecturer used.
• If a course offers the recording as audio only, use the audio translator and listen while viewing the slides.

Example

Cost: 4,750 credits ($4.75).

Limitations to know

• One voice for the whole lecture, including student questions.
• Machine translation of specialist terms may need checking.

Dub, translated transcript, or both

The dubbed video and the translated transcript solve different problems, and they cost very different amounts. A 90-minute lecture shows the gap.

Dubbed lecture video

4,500 credits ($4.50). You hear the lecture in your language while watching the slides and the board.

Translated transcript only

90 credits (9¢). You read and search the lecture in your language, but listen to the original audio.

What one dub run includes

Besides the video, SRT and VTT subtitles in your language and the original-language transcript, so one run covers listening and reading.

Many students settle on a mix: translated transcripts for every lecture in the course, and the dub only for the sessions that are hardest to follow, such as dense theory or a lecturer who speaks quickly. For the wider trade-offs, see studying lectures in a second language.

Getting the file and picking the right target

The lecture has to be a file on your device. Many course platforms offer a download button on recordings; if yours only streams, ask the lecturer or the course office whether a download can be shared with you, rather than screen-recording a stream, which loses quality and may break the platform's rules. An audio-only download works too if you are happy to follow the slides separately.

When choosing the target language, check the variants in the picker. A student from Mexico may prefer Spanish (Latin America) over Spanish (Spain), and a student from Brazil will usually want Portuguese (Brazil); the vocabulary and accent of the voice then sit closer to what they grew up with.

Keep the original terms within reach

Exams, essays and seminar discussions usually happen in the language the course is taught in. If you only ever hear the translation, you may learn the concepts but not the words you'll be marked on. The side-by-side view on the result screen is the place to fix that: as you review, copy each key term in both languages into a running glossary for the course.

Machine translation also tends to turn technical vocabulary into everyday words. "Elasticity" in economics or "stress" in engineering can come back with their general meanings. Whenever a translated sentence seems oddly vague, read the original line next to it. Translating names and technical terms explains why this happens.

A routine that works for many students: watch the dubbed lecture once for understanding, then reread the original-language transcript only for the sections you marked as difficult. The second pass is short, and it ties each concept to the wording your lecturer and your exam paper will use.

Watching and revising from the files

The translated MP4 plays offline in any ordinary video player, which suits a commute or a library with poor Wi-Fi. If the lecturer is fast, most desktop and mobile players can slow playback down; the 0.75×–1.5× control on the result screen is for previewing the dub. Desktop players such as VLC can also load the SRT next to the video, so you can hear the translation and read it at the same time.

For revision, the subtitle file doubles as a timed outline of the lecture in your language: open it in a text editor, search for a topic, and jump to that time in the video.

Planning a whole course

Recordings over two hours need splitting; translating long videos covers where to cut and how to keep terms consistent across parts. For text in the original language only, see lecture transcription.

What the dub won't capture

• Writing on the board and text in the slides stay in the original language; only speech is translated.
• Students' questions, often far from the microphone, may be partly missed and are read in the lecturer's voice.
• Jokes, asides and references to local events may translate literally and fall flat.
• If the lecturer switches languages mid-sentence, the result can be uneven; mixed-language videos explains why.

Using the tool on this page

• The spoken language is detected automatically; you select the output language — the spoken language itself for an untranslated transcript, or another language for a translation. Files can be up to 2 hours long.
• Only the audio is sent for processing — the video stays on your device — and audio and text are deleted within 30 minutes of delivery (how files are protected).
• You can download a translated video that keeps your music and effects, the translated audio as M4A, a transcript and subtitles (SRT and VTT). Every output, step and limit is explained on the video translator page.