Old family videos written out word for word, with English for the next generation
Upload a family video or recording in the language your parents or grandparents speak and get every word written out in that language, with an English translation under each paragraph, so your children or your spouse can follow it. A recording of up to 15 minutes is free in full. A longer one is $5, one payment for the whole file, up to 6 hours.
- Video files work directly: MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, 3GP and more, up to 2 GB
- Every word in the language spoken, in its own script, then English under it
- A timestamp on each paragraph, so you can find the moment in the video
- Weddings, birthdays, phone videos and digitized tapes
- Up to 6 hours for $5; Unlimited covers up to 12 hours per job
Real output from a demo recording. Click a timestamp to see where it sits in the audio.
How to get a family video written out in English
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1
Upload the video
Drop the video file here or paste a Google Drive or Dropbox link. Pick the spoken language if you know it; English translation is already on.
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2
See the first part free
Read the opening minutes on screen with the English underneath before you decide.
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3
Unlock and download
Pay $5 once for the whole video, rename the speakers, and download Word, PDF or TXT to share with the family.
When the family speaks a language the kids do not
Many families who moved abroad carry boxes of tapes and phones full of videos: a grandmother telling stories in Burmese, a wedding speech in Tigrinya, a father singing in Punjabi, cousins joking in Vietnamese. The children who grew up in English hear the voices but miss the words. This tool writes out everything that was said, in the language and script it was said in, and puts an English translation under each paragraph.
The original stays on the page because it is the real record. A Burmese line is written in Burmese script, Vietnamese with its tone marks, and Arabic in Arabic script, right to left. Punjabi can be written in Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi, so look at the free part to see which one your recording gets. English words that were said in the video stay in English.
Several voices, background noise, old tapes
Family videos are hard audio: people talk over each other, music plays, a child cries, the camera is across the room. Expect more mistakes in those moments, and parts that cannot be heard are marked [inaudible]. When the speaker clearly changes, a paragraph starts with "Speaker 1:" or "Speaker 2:", which you can rename on screen to Grandma, Uncle Kyaw or any name with Find and replace.
Tapes digitized to a video file work like any other upload. If one tape was saved as several files, put them in one job; they are joined in name order, so check the names sort the way the tape played.
Languages families bring
- Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai, Tagalog and Chinese
- Tigrinya, Amharic, Somali, Swahili, Yoruba and Hausa
- Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati and Nepali
- Arabic in any dialect, Persian, Pashto, Dari and Kurdish
- A language not on the list may still come out: look at the free first part before you pay
Want to watch with subtitles instead
This page gives you a document to read, print or keep: Word, PDF and TXT, with the original and the English together. If you would rather play the video with English subtitles on the screen, use the separate Video to Translated Subtitles tool at /en/video-to-translated-subtitles. It makes an SRT file you can load in VLC, Plex or a TV next to the video file.
How the tool works, what it costs and how your files are handled is on the Long Audio & Video to Text page; prices for every tool are on the pricing page.
Last updated
Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT translate a 2-hour family video?
For a short clip a chat assistant can help. A two-hour video is usually too long to upload, and a full transcript plus translation does not fit in one reply, so it often gets summarized or stops partway.
How much does it cost for a long video?
One video of up to 6 hours is $5, paid once, with the translation included. If you have a whole box of tapes to do this week, Unlimited at $19 a week covers each job up to 12 hours and can be canceled any time.
Can I translate into a language other than English?
Yes. Change the translation language before you upload, for example to French or German, or switch it off to get only the original language.
Who can see our family videos?
Only you. The file is sent to an AI model provider only to be transcribed and is not used to train models. Jobs started without an account are deleted after 7 days, and you can delete a job any time.