Japanese Subtitle Generator

• A Japanese subtitle generator with auto language detection

  Upload your video and hit generate. Whisper-class speech recognition detects that the audio is Japanese on its own, so there is no language picker to set first, and a manual From-language override exists if a noisy clip ever needs it. It is the same engine behind the add subtitles tool, tuned by nothing more than what it hears.

• Kanji, hiragana and katakana render natively

  Captions come out in natural mixed script, the way Japanese is actually written: kanji for content words, hiragana for particles and endings, katakana for loanwords and foreign names. Full-width punctuation such as 「」, 、and 。displays correctly in every preset. You can also upload a Japanese font like Noto Sans JP through the brand kit and it appears in the text style picker.

• 176 caption presets, including karaoke styles

  Style the Japanese track with 176 named presets, from clean broadcast looks to word-by-word karaoke fills where the active word lights up as it is spoken. Per-word color and emphasis editing lets you make a single kanji compound pop. Browse the full range on the caption generator page.

• Fix homophones cue by cue

  Japanese speech recognition sometimes picks the wrong kanji for a sound-alike word, a classic case being げきじょう transcribed as 劇場 (theater) when the speaker meant 激情 (passion). Click any cue to correct the text, split a long line at a phrase boundary, or drag its timing on the timeline. Names and technical terms are worth a quick pass too.

• Translate between Japanese and 85 other languages

  One click translates the whole subtitle track; Japanese is a verified entry in the 86-language translation catalog. Turn Japanese footage into English subtitles, or go the other way and localize English content for the Japan market. Translation is a Pro feature. It rewrites the subtitle text only, it does not dub the voice audio.

• Dual Japanese and English subtitles

  Show the original Japanese line with a translation directly underneath, something learners and language teachers ask for constantly. The bilingual subtitles tool sets this up in a couple of clicks, and both lines stay editable.

• Burn in, or download SRT, VTT, TXT and JSON

  Hardcode the Japanese captions into the video so they display identically on every platform, or, on a paid plan, download the track as SRT, VTT, TXT or JSON for YouTube uploads and translation workflows. Existing SRT and VTT files import straight onto the timeline as editable cues, free; the add subtitles page covers that path.

• Add a Japanese voice over

  The editor includes 63 AI text-to-speech voices, five of them native Japanese (four female, one male), useful for narration, intros or an accessibility version of a clip. Try them on the Japanese text to speech page.

1. 1

   Upload your video

   Drag in a file in any common format: MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV are accepted along with 16 others.

2. 2

   Generate the Japanese captions

   Open the captions panel and hit generate. Speech recognition detects the spoken Japanese automatically and returns word-timed cues in kanji, hiragana and katakana. No settings to configure first.

3. 3

   Proofread and style

   Read through the cues, correct any homophone slips or name spellings, then pick one of 176 caption presets and adjust the font, size and position. Keep lines short; professional Japanese subtitling commonly runs about 13 full-width characters per line.

4. 4

   Translate, burn in and export

   Optionally translate the track into any of 86 languages (a Pro feature) or add a second bilingual line, then export. Free exports are 720p MP4 with a small removable watermark badge; paid plans add 1080p, 4K and clean exports.

• YouTube videos for Japanese viewers

  Burned-in Japanese captions keep muted viewers reading, while an SRT file, available on paid plans, feeds YouTube's own subtitle system and helps search pick up your content. Both come from the same generated track.

• Shorts, Reels and TikTok in Japan

  A lot of Japanese short-form viewing happens muted, on trains and in shared spaces, so the on-screen text carries the message. Karaoke presets with active-word fill hold attention through the whole clip, and the same captioned cut also works for X and LINE VOOM, both of which have outsized reach in Japan.

• Japanese learners and teachers

  Pair the original Japanese line with an English translation using dual subtitles, and let the word-by-word highlight show exactly what is being said as it is said. Editing a hard cue into kana is a quick way to simplify a line for beginners.

• Interviews and podcasts

  Transcribe a Japanese interview, tidy the transcript, then cut quote clips with captions already timed. Text-based editing means deleting a sentence from the transcript deletes the matching footage.

• Localizing content for the Japan market

  Take an English video, generate captions, translate them into Japanese and burn them in. Subtitles are the standard, honest route into Japan when a dubbed voice track is out of budget.

• Company training and demos

  Caption product demos, onboarding videos and all-hands recordings so Japanese-speaking staff can follow along in open offices or on mute. On a paid plan, download the TXT or JSON track when someone needs a written record.

Based on each tool's public pages as of July 2026. Plans and features change, so check current pricing pages before deciding.