How to Translate Videos for Free
Get Original Transcript of Video
Say you have a video but do not have access to the text transcript, and you need this video in another language.
You can use this free solution: https://text-speech.net/
It says Text to Speech. But at the top panel there’s actually a Speech to Text option: https://text-speech.net/reverse.html
Now, select the original language in the dropdown and then click the start button before playing your video.
Understand that this is a free service and it may not be able to catch certain intonations well, but it’s 80% accurate I would say.
If you find the conversion not being able to catch up, try to increase your volume (to catch some softer tones) or slow down the video if possible.
You may also like to do it in parts instead of playing the video in full.
If you do it in parts, you can click on the “Online Notepad” to copy and paste your text over for the full copy.
Use ChatGPT to translate and then convert from Text to Speech
I find ChatGPT quite an accurate translator compared to Google Translate.
However, if ChatGPT is busy then you have to resort to using Google Translate.
Simply copy and paste the entire text over to ChatGPT and request for translation to your desired language.
After that, use the “Text to Speech” feature here: https://text-speech.net/ to convert the translated text to speech. Remember to select your desired language.
Note that there are limited options for languages for text to speech. Click on the language bar dropdown to check out the full range of languages available.
You may use the “Voice Recorder” button to open a new window for your recording. Simply start your recording, then go back to the window to start the speech to have your speech recorded as WebM file.
Alternatively, you can also check out https://voicemaker.in/pricing with freemium pricing. They have quite a good range of languages for text to speech, and different voices for you to choose from. The file format here will be MP3.
Use Capcut or Canva to insert the new audio file
Both Canva and Capcut are free video editing tools.
Choose the one you are more comfortable with, both allow you to upload audio files.
If you have a video in a foreign language you want to localize but unable to remove the sound, you can still use the speech to text and translation method to include localized subtitles to the video.
Suggested A.D.A (Attempt a Doable Action)
If you are already a video creator you can try the complete set of instructions to translate your video to reach out to cross border audience.
If you are curious and just starting to tinker, try to find any YouTube speech videos eg. motivational videos with clear diction and test out the speech to text translation.