Subtitles Are Not Captions: Getting Foreign-Language Video Right for Accessibility and Language Access

An agency publishes a public-health video in English with captions. Then, because a large share of the community speaks Spanish, it orders “Spanish captions” from a vendor and publishes those too.

What comes back is a Spanish translation of the dialogue, timed to the speech. It reads well. It is also missing every sound that is not speech — the alarm in the background of the fire-safety segment, the narrator’s note that a caller is speaking off-screen, the music cue that signals a change of topic. A hearing Spanish speaker does not need those. A deaf Spanish speaker does.

The agency asked for captions and received subtitles. The two words are used interchangeably in everyday speech, and the difference is exactly the part that matters for accessibility.

What is the difference, precisely?

Captions are a text alternative for the audio, for people who cannot hear it. WCAG defines them as a synchronised visual or text alternative for both speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the media. That means dialogue plus speaker identification where it is not obvious, plus meaningful sound: [door slams], [phone ringing], [music stops], [crowd laughing], [speaking Spanish].

Subtitles, in the conventional sense, are a translation of the dialogue, for people who can hear but do not understand the spoken language. They assume the viewer hears the alarm and the music.

SDH — subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing — combine the two: the dialogue translated into the viewer’s language, with the non-speech information captions would carry, also in that language.

So “Spanish captions” can mean either of two quite different products. When the audience includes deaf and hard-of-hearing Spanish speakers, what you need is SDH, or captions authored in Spanish — not translated dialogue alone.

Which laws require which?

Two separate obligations meet here, and each asks for something different.

Accessibility. WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) at Level A and 1.2.4 Captions (Live) at Level AA require captions for synchronised media. WCAG 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded) at Level AA covers the visual side for people who are blind or have low vision. These apply to state and local government video through the ADA Title II web rule (WCAG 2.1 AA), to federal video through Section 508 (WCAG 2.0 AA, via 36 CFR Part 1194), and to HHS-funded healthcare providers through the Section 504 rule. The deadlines post sets out which compliance date applies to whom.

Language access. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act requires recipients of federal financial assistance to take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to people with limited English proficiency. For video that carries important information — how to apply, what to do in an emergency, how to take a medication — that often means translated subtitles or a translated version. Title VI is unaffected by the revocation of the executive order agencies once cited alongside it; we explain that change here.

Note what neither obligation says on its own. WCAG’s captioning requirements apply to the video’s own language; WCAG does not require you to translate. Title VI may require translation but is not an accessibility standard. An agency that serves both populations needs to satisfy both — and a deaf viewer with limited English proficiency is served by neither an English caption file nor a dialogue-only Spanish subtitle file.

Why do translated subtitles so often fail?

Because they are usually produced by translating the English caption file, and several things are lost in the process.

Sound information gets dropped. Translators working from a dialogue script, or instructed to produce “subtitles”, omit the bracketed sound descriptions entirely.

Reading speed breaks. Spanish, Portuguese and many other languages typically run longer than English. Text that fit comfortably on screen in English can become two dense lines flashing past too quickly to read. Good subtitling condenses meaning to fit the time, which is a translation skill, not a find-and-replace.

Timing drifts from speech. Sentence structure differs across languages, so a line break that aligned with a pause in English may cut a translated sentence at a meaningless point.

On-screen text stays in English. Titles, lower thirds, phone numbers and charts burned into the video are not in the caption file at all. A Spanish-speaking viewer sees them in English with no translation.

Auto-translation compounds auto-captioning. Machine-generated captions translated by machine can carry the first system’s errors — misheard names, wrong numbers, dropped negations — into a second language, where nobody on the publishing team can spot them. We explain why auto-captions do not satisfy the requirement in the first place.

What about players, files and language tags?

The caption file has to work in the player too.

Offer each language as a separate, selectable track, labelled in its own language — “Español”, not “Spanish” — so the viewer who needs it can find it. Make sure the player’s caption and language controls are keyboard-accessible and announced to screen readers. Where the platform supports it, set the track’s language code correctly so assistive technology and the player know what they are handling. And if you publish transcripts, which many viewers prefer, publish them in each language as properly structured, language-tagged pages or documents.

How to order this correctly

Name what you need. Ask for “SDH in Spanish” or “Spanish captions including non-speech information”, not “Spanish subtitles”. If you only need dialogue subtitles for a hearing audience, say so — but know that is what you are getting.

Start from a verified caption file in the source language. Everything downstream inherits its errors. Get the English right first.

Translate with a human, then time and QA per language. Check reading speed, line breaks and synchronisation in each target language, not just the English.

Translate on-screen text. Either add it to the subtitle track as a positioned caption or produce a localised version of the video.

Plan audio description separately. It is its own deliverable, and in a second language it needs its own script and voice.

Prioritise by consequence. Emergency, health, benefits and eligibility videos first. Our post on accessible and translated emergency notifications covers the most time-critical case.

Where Taika fits

We produce captions, SDH, subtitles, transcripts and audio description in English and the languages your community speaks, with human translators and per-language timing and quality review. We meet and exceed ISO 17100, 9001 and 27001 standards. Our quality guarantee covers the translation itself.

Have video that needs captions, SDH or subtitles in more than one language? Send us the number of videos and total runtime, the source language, the target languages, whether deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers are part of the audience, and whether audio description is needed — then request a quote. Our accessible video page covers the full service.