Upload a Swahili video or audio file, or paste a link, and download timed subtitles in Latin script: SRT for YouTube and video editors, VTT for web players.
How it works
Drop a file, or paste a public link from YouTube, Google Drive or a podcast feed. Files over 500 MB continue on the upload page, up to 10 hours or 5 GB.
Read the first Swahili cues against the audio. Correct a line on the transcript and the subtitle file carries the correction.
SRT for YouTube Studio and video editors, VTT for web players. TXT, DOCX and JSON come from the same transcript.
What to expect with Swahili
For a transcript rather than subtitles, see transcribe Swahili, Swahili audio to text and Swahili YouTube video to text. For subtitles from any YouTube link, YouTube to SRT; for any file, the SRT generator.
Captioning Swahili
Swahili builds a sentence into the verb: nitakupenda is "I will love you" in one word. Lines therefore hold fewer, longer words than English, and a cue split in the middle of a verb form makes no sense, so break between words.
Swahili time counts hours from dawn, not midnight: saa moja asubuhi, "hour one in the morning", is 7 a.m. A speaker saying saa mbili means 8 o'clock. The text writes what was said; if your audience reads international time, add it in the cue yourself.
Swahili nouns fall into classes marked by a prefix, and every adjective and verb in the sentence agrees with it: mtoto mzuri (a good child), watoto wazuri (good children). A misheard prefix breaks the agreement across the whole sentence, so it is the error to look for when you read the cues. Loanwords are everywhere, from Arabic (kitabu, book) and English (kompyuta).
Delivery
<track> element with srclang="sw". How to attach it.Before you rely on it
Each cue is a phrase from the transcript with its start and end time. Most run a few seconds. A passage spoken without a pause can come out as one long cue of up to about half a minute, so split those in your editor if your platform wants two short lines at a time.
Cue times are taken from the recording itself, so the file lines up with the video or audio you uploaded. If you trim the start of the video afterwards, shift the cues by the same amount in your editor.
Open the transcript, correct a misheard name or number on its line, and the SRT and VTT you download carry the correction with the timing unchanged.
You get the subtitle file. Fonts, colours, position and captions drawn into the picture are done in your video editor or player, which reads this file.
Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per recording. The box on this page takes files up to 500 MB; larger ones continue on the upload page. 99+ languages, detected automatically.
Speakers are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters. The cues in the subtitle file carry the words and their timing only.
Pricing
One-time packs are $6 for 500 minutes, $8 for 1,000 minutes, $12 for 2,000 minutes, $24 for 5,000 minutes. Credits never expire, which comes to about $0.29 to $0.72 per hour of audio. In some countries the free preview is not offered and the box asks for a pack first; the smallest is $6 for 500 minutes.
| Recording | $6 or $8 pack | $12 pack | $24 pack |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15-minute interview | $0.12 | $0.09 | $0.07 |
| 1-hour sermon | $0.48 | $0.36 | $0.29 |
| 2-hour radio programme | $0.96 | $0.72 | $0.58 |
Figures are the share of a pack each recording uses. A button opens secure checkout for that pack. Every export format is included; full details on the pricing page.
FAQ
Upload the video or paste its link in the box on this page. The Swahili speech is transcribed in Latin script; read it through, correct any line, and download SRT or VTT from the transcript.
Partly. Kenyan and Tanzanian Swahili transcribe well; Sheng words and English mixed in need a review pass.
Swahili counts hours from dawn, so saa moja is 7 a.m. The text keeps what the speaker said; add the international time yourself if needed.
Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu), based on the Zanzibar dialect, is what broadcasters in Kenya and Tanzania write. Keep Sheng words where they carry the meaning and review them.
We have not published a benchmark figure for Swahili, so we do not quote one. Test a short file first: the smallest pack is $6 for 500 minutes.
Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. Files over 500 MB continue on the upload page rather than in the box on this page.
Every page in this set uses the same upload box and the same export. All subtitle pages
Swahili SRT and VTT from one upload; packs from $6 for 500 minutes, credits never expire.