Automatic Hebrew subtitles: how to get them right, and how to fix them
Automatic transcription is a first draft. Most of the fixing happens before you press record, and the rest in two short read-throughs.
Record so the words are heard
- Keep the microphone close: a clip-on mic, or the phone near your mouth, beats a camera across the room.
- A quiet room with soft things in it: no air conditioner, fan or street noise under the voice.
- One speaker at a time. Overlapping voices are where transcription loses the most.
- Say names and English terms clearly once; it helps you find them later.
Proofread in two passes
- First pass: names, brands and places. These are the words recognition gets wrong most often, and the ones viewers notice.
- Second pass: numbers, prices, dates and English words inside Hebrew lines, and the direction of each line's end.
Find and replace what keeps coming back wrong
If a name or a term is wrong once, it is usually wrong every time. Fix it everywhere at once with find and replace, then read the lines it changed.
Export SRT for YouTube
Keep the corrected captions as an SRT file and add it to the YouTube upload as a caption track. On Shorts, Reels and TikTok, burn the corrected captions into the picture.
Where ion fits, and where it doesn't
What ion does here
- Edit it like text. Something not right? No round of fixes, no waiting on anyone: delete a word and the video is cut, fix a caption, move a graphic, or just tell ion what to change. Every change is saved in a second, and you can go back to any version.
- Edit the clip: Correct the captions, change their look and the title, then export a new version. Find, Replace all, Undo, Redo or Delete line. Free. The original clip stays as it is; each export is a version of its own.
- Captions file: A finished video and each clip can be downloaded with their captions as an SRT file.
- Language: ion was built for Hebrew first: captions run right to left, and English words, numbers, prices and @handles stay in place. It works in English too, and in videos that mix both.
Where ion isn't the tool
- ion doesn't publish an accuracy figure for its transcription, and this guide gives none: read the captions before you post.
- Languages other than Hebrew and English. ion is built for those two; other languages aren't supported.
Short answers
- How do I fix automatic Hebrew subtitles?
- Read them twice: once for names and brands, once for numbers and English words. Use find and replace for anything that repeats, and check the end of each line for punctuation on the wrong side.
- What improves Hebrew transcription the most?
- The recording: a microphone close to the speaker, a quiet room and one person speaking at a time.
Sources
More guides
- Hebrew captions for Reels, TikTok and Shorts that read right
- Editing a video by editing its text
- How to edit a talking-head video with AI, in Hebrew
- Guides
- Pricing
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