Translate Korean subtitles to English
Last updated September 2026
Found a video with only Korean subtitles? You can translate the Korean .srt or .vtt file into English right in your browser. Korean is written in Hangul, a featural alphabet grouped into syllable blocks, and does use spaces between words. The tool sends each cue's text to the on-device translation model in desktop Chrome or Edge and writes the English back with the original timing, so the new file stays in sync with the video. The file never leaves your computer.
How to do it
- Get the Korean subtitle file as .srt or .vtt, and make sure it's saved as UTF-8 (see the tips below if the text looks garbled).
- Open the translator in desktop Chrome 138+ or Edge — the button here presets Korean → English.
- Drop the file in. If the browser supports language detection, it will confirm the source is Korean.
- Press Translate. The first run downloads the Korean–English model once; later files in the same pair start immediately and work offline.
- Download the English subtitle file and load it next to your video (same file name as the video makes most players pick it up automatically).
Tips
- Korean subtitles from older sources are often CP949 (EUC-KR). Convert them to UTF-8 first or the text will be unreadable to the translator.
- Terms like oppa, unnie and sunbae carry relationship meaning that English lacks; expect generic renderings.
- Machine translation is a strong first draft. For anything you'll publish, have someone fluent in Korean spot-check names and jokes.
FAQ
My Korean SRT is unreadable after opening — what's wrong?
It's likely encoded in CP949/EUC-KR rather than UTF-8. Open it in an editor that can re-save as UTF-8 (VS Code, Notepad++, Subtitle Edit), then translate.
Is my Korean subtitle file uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read and translated inside your browser by its built-in model. Only anonymous usage analytics are collected — never file contents.
Why does it say my browser isn't supported?
The on-device Translator API currently exists only in desktop Google Chrome 138+ and Microsoft Edge. Brave, Opera, Firefox, Safari and all mobile browsers either lack the API or the model.