How to add Arabic subtitles to a video automatically (with dialect intact)

Arabic video gets watched on mute. On Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube Shorts, most people scroll with the sound off, and a video without captions says nothing to them. Captions also make a video searchable: the words are text a platform can index. This guide shows how to add Arabic subtitles to a video automatically — and why the dialect of those subtitles matters more than most tools assume.

Why do auto-generated Arabic subtitles often feel wrong?

Because many captioning tools transcribe Gulf speech into Modern Standard Arabic. A creator in Dubai says شو رايكم and the caption reads «ما رأيكم». Viewers notice straight away: the words on screen are not the words they heard, and the video feels translated rather than spoken. We explain why models do this in Gulf Arabic vs MSA.

nutq's speech model keeps Gulf and Levantine Arabic as spoken, so captions match the voice.

How do you add Arabic subtitles automatically, step by step?

In nutq Studio, a video editor with captioning built in:

1. Add the video. Drop in the file; it goes on the timeline. Pick a frame shape — landscape 16:9, vertical 9:16, square 1:1 or portrait 4:5.
2. Generate captions. Choose the spoken language or leave it on Detect automatically. Studio shows the cost before you start, based on the length of the audio.
3. Review the lines. Read through and fix names or terms. Press Enter to split a line at the cursor if it runs long.
4. Style them. Choose Clean, Box, Bold or Highlight, set the size, and place them at the bottom, middle or top of the frame.
5. Export. Render an MP4 with the captions burned in, and download an SRT alongside it if the platform accepts caption files.

If no speech is heard, you are not charged; if a step fails partway, you are not charged for the part that failed.

Burned-in captions or an SRT file?

For short vertical video, burn them in. For YouTube, upload the SRT too — it gives the platform the text of your video to index, which helps it show up in search.

How do you translate Arabic captions into other languages?

Add a caption language and Studio translates each line while keeping its timing. You can show one language on the video and export others as files. Captions can go into Arabic, English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Hindi, Urdu, Japanese and Chinese — useful for reaching Gulf audiences and international ones from the same edit.

Can you dub a video into Arabic automatically?

Yes. Dub video listens to the speech, translates it, voices it and places each voiced line on the timeline. For Arabic, the voice can be one of the Gulf voices or a copy of the original speaker's voice (in beta), and the original sound can be kept quietly underneath or switched off. The voices come from the same model as the Arabic text to speech API.

What about titles, descriptions and hashtags?

Once a video has captions, Studio can write the post for you: suggested titles, a description and hashtags, in Arabic, English or both — drawn from what is actually said in the video.

What does it cost?

Captions are charged as transcription: $0.15 per hour of audio, so a ten-minute video costs under three cents to caption. Translation, dubbing and post details are charged separately and listed on your usage page. New accounts get $5 of free credit with no card.

Prefer to do it in code?

The speech parts of Studio are available through the API. Transcribe with the Arabic speech to text API and generate voiceover with /v1/speech; the API reference has the details.