Downloading YouTube subtitles in Chinese or English: choose the right track
Hong Kong trailers and interviews often carry several caption tracks. Which one to download, how to tell a real one from a machine's, and Traditional versus Simplified.
Download the subtitles of a Hong Kong trailer or interview and the first thing you meet is a choice. There may be English, Chinese, Chinese labelled for Hong Kong or Taiwan, a Simplified track, an auto-generated one — and the one you pick decides whether the text is any use.
How to download them
- Copy the video's link from YouTube.
- Paste it into a tool that can download YouTube subtitles.
- Open the language list and choose a track — more on that below.
- Download as plain text to read, or as a timed SRT or VTT file to play alongside the video.
On Transcript.you, plain text is free with an account; SRT and VTT are on the paid plan. It works only where the video has captions: switched-off captions, private videos and age-restricted videos give you nothing.
Choosing the track
Uploaded beats auto-generated
A track the uploader added was written by a person — usually the distributor, for a trailer. A track marked auto-generated is speech recognition, and for Cantonese in particular it struggles with names, slang and fast talk. If both exist, take the uploaded one.
Traditional or Simplified
Hong Kong reads Traditional Chinese. Tracks labelled for Hong Kong or Taiwan, or as Traditional, use it; tracks labelled Simplified, or for mainland China or Singapore, do not. The meaning is the same, but if the text is for reading, printing or study, pick the script you read.
Spoken Cantonese or written Chinese
Chinese captions on Hong Kong videos are usually written in standard written Chinese, not in the words actually spoken. A few uploads carry a track in written Cantonese — the colloquial characters, as said. If you want what the speaker said rather than what they meant, that is the track to look for.
Be wary of auto-translate
YouTube can machine-translate captions into other languages on the fly. That is handy for watching, but a machine translation of a machine transcription is two guesses stacked, and it is not something to rely on as text.
What it cannot do
It reads YouTube captions, nothing else. Films and series on streaming services keep their subtitles inside their own apps, and there is no file to download. And a trailer's subtitles are not the cinema's: the subtitles you will see at a screening are made separately.
For that, it is the film's version that matters, and the venue — what is on this week lists every film showing, and every cinema in Hong Kong has its screens and formats. Taking someone who does not read Chinese? Our subtitle checklist for visitors covers it.
Common questions
- Which subtitle track should I download from a YouTube video?
- An uploaded track over an auto-generated one, and the script you read: Traditional for Hong Kong, Simplified for mainland China and Singapore.
- Why doesn't the Chinese subtitle match what is said?
- Hong Kong captions are usually in standard written Chinese, not the spoken Cantonese words. Look for a track in written Cantonese if you want the words as spoken.
- Can I download subtitles for a film showing in cinemas?
- Not the cinema's subtitles. You can download the captions of its trailer or clips on YouTube, which is a guide to the dialogue but not the subtitles shown at the screening.