Multilingual Short-Form: SRT, Translation, and a Workflow That Survives Review
When machine translation is fine for a first pass, and when to pay a native speaker (hint: money and health claims).
Posting the same 9:16 in three languages is not three uploads if you plan: one good timed English SRT, then language packs that preserve timecodes, then a read from a native speaker for markets that are revenue-critical.
Order of operations
- Lock the English cut and captions; timing is the source of truth
- Translate in segments that match breath lines, not Duolingo sentences
- Have someone in-market skim for humour that does not land
Burned-in vs player captions
Auto-translated on-platform captions are fine for test markets; burned-in is for campaigns where the brand typeface matters.