What to expect when translating into Polish
Polish has seven cases and gendered past-tense verbs, so the translation sometimes misgenders the speaker or picks the wrong ending for a name. Text often runs longer than English.
The Polish voice track
Polish audiences are familiar with a single translated voice from the lektor tradition, so one clear translated voice is an accepted format.
A logistics company translates a 12-minute warehouse-safety video into Polish for staff in Poznań.
Voice, MP4, subtitles and transcripts: 600 credits (60¢). Subtitles and transcripts only: 12 credits (1.2¢).
Polish subtitles
Polish TV traditionally uses a single voice-over reader (lektor) for foreign films, but subtitles are common on streaming services and YouTube.
Polish (Polski) is written in the Latin alphabet.
A Polish YouTuber adds Polish subtitles to an 18-minute English tech review.
Switch Full translation output off for subtitles only: 18 credits (1.8¢). If the video is already in Polish, select Polish as the language instead and the subtitles come back untranslated — see Polish transcription.
Translating audio files into Polish
A Polish community radio station in the UK turns a 29-minute English health talk into Polish audio.
Podcasts and recordings go through the audio translator, which returns a Polish M4A and transcripts: 1,450 credits ($1.45) with voice, 29 credits (2.9¢) as text only.
Who translates into Polish
Polish is spoken in Poland and Polish communities in the UK, Germany and the US. It's used by manufacturers and service centres with Polish staff, Polish universities, and game studios.
How the dub differs from a lektor voice-over
A Polish lektor reads the translation in one even voice while the original soundtrack stays faintly audible underneath. The dub here shares the one-voice idea, since a single stock voice speaks every line, but the mix is different: the original speech is removed, and the Polish voice sits over the original music and effects, which are lowered while it speaks. The original speakers are not heard under it, so it is still not lektor; it is closer to a narration track over the original soundtrack.
Separation isn't perfect: in dense or loud mixes faint traces of the original voice can remain, and songs lose their sung vocals along with the speech. "Download translated audio" gives the same mix as an M4A. For your own music levels, dub a dialogue-only export of your edit project instead and mix the translated voice with a clean music stem. Dubbing versus voice-over explains the conventions, and editing dubbed audio in a video editor walks through the mix.
Because one voice speaks for everyone, pick the voice for the main speaker. Polish marks gender in first-person past tense (zrobiłem for a man, zrobiłam for a woman), so a female voice reading a translation written for a male speaker sounds wrong even when every word is correct. Check first-person lines against the voice you picked.
Pan, Pani, Państwo or ty
Polish formal address uses third-person forms: "Czy Pan może…" to a man, "Czy Pani może…" to a woman, "Państwo" for a group. Customer communications, banks and corporate training usually take this route. Apps, games and most YouTube channels use the informal ty with imperatives such as "Kliknij" and "Sprawdź". Machine translation reads English "you" one sentence at a time and can switch between the two.
Instructional videos have a third option that sidesteps the choice: impersonal forms such as "Należy założyć kask" (a helmet must be worn) or infinitives like "Nacisnąć przycisk". Warehouse and factory training often reads better this way, and it avoids guessing the gender of every viewer. Whichever you choose, apply it to the whole subtitle file.
Endings on names, brands and numbers
Polish declines names and brands through seven cases. "Anna Kowalska" becomes "z Anną Kowalską", Excel becomes "w Excelu", and a foreign surname may be left uninflected, inflected oddly, or inflected differently in two places. Collect every name in the translated subtitles and check each one once; translating names and technical terms suggests keeping a short list for future videos.
Polish IT, gaming and marketing speech keeps many English words and gives them Polish endings: "zrobić deploy", "commitować zmiany", "wrzucić na stories". A machine translation may replace them with formal Polish equivalents that a developer audience never uses, or keep them without the endings a Polish speaker would add. Decide which jargon stays English for your audience and check that it is inflected the way people actually say it.
Nouns after numbers change form: 1 plik, 2 pliki, 5 plików. Check lines where a figure was recognised as digits, and check prices and measurements too. Polish uses a decimal comma, a space between thousands (10 000 zł), dates such as 1.10.2026 or 1 października 2026, and quotation marks written „like this”.
Short clips and the 2-minute dub minimum
Dubbing bills at least 2 minutes per file, so one 90-second clip into Polish costs 100 credits (10¢), not 75. Polish subtitles alone for the same clip hit the 5-credit transcript minimum: 5 credits (0.5¢).
The minimum matters when you have a library of short clips. Ten 90-second clips dubbed one by one cost 1,000 credits ($1.00); joined into a single 15-minute file first, they cost 750 credits (75¢), and you can cut the dubbed video back into clips in an editor. Safety material needs a Polish-speaking reviewer whatever the cost; safety training video translation explains why, and the training video use case covers the wider workflow.
Sign-off list for the Polish version
- Register: Państwo, Pan/Pani, ty or impersonal, used consistently.
- First-person past tense agrees with the speaker and with the voice you chose.
- Names and product names inflected correctly and the same way each time.
- Numbers agree with their nouns; prices and units use Polish formatting.
- Letters ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź and ż display correctly in the player.
- Safety or compliance videos approved by a Polish-speaking reviewer before release.
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.
Other languages
Frequently asked questions
Will Polish gender agreement be correct?
Mostly, but Polish marks gender in past-tense verbs, so if the speaker's gender isn't clear from the source, the translation may guess wrong. Check first-person sentences.
Can the Polish version keep the original audio underneath, like a lektor?
Not the original voices. The translated MP4 removes the original speech and keeps the music and effects under the Polish voice, so the speakers themselves are not heard the way they are under a lektor.
Should Polish subtitles address viewers as Pan/Pani or ty?
It depends on the brand and audience. Formal forms suit banks, public bodies and customer service; ty suits apps, games and creators. Impersonal instructions avoid the choice in training videos.
Do clips shorter than 2 minutes cost less to dub?
No. Dubbing is billed for at least 2 minutes per file, so a 1-minute clip costs 100 credits (10¢). Joining short clips into one file before dubbing avoids paying the minimum on each.