Subtitling · French
French subtitling services
Native French subtitlers for streaming, broadcast, documentary, advertising and corporate video, for France or for Canada. Punctuation spaced the way each market spaces it, and held together so no line break can split it. Part of a full French service: subtitles, voice over scripts and translation.
About French subtitling
The mistake that survives every review
In France, a question mark takes a space in front of it. In Canada, it does not. The two conventions are set out in two separate style guides that contradict each other on the most common mark in any dialogue, and a file made for Paris and shipped to Montréal gets it wrong on every question and every exclamation in the picture — a few hundred times in a feature.
What makes it expensive is that it is invisible to the things that normally catch mistakes. The words are right, so a back-translation passes. A diff shows nothing worth reading. A reviewer skimming for meaning skims straight past it. The only people who notice are the audience you made the file for, and what they notice is not a typo — it is that the subtitles were written for somewhere else.
The same space causes a second problem that has nothing to do with which country you are in. A break inserted at that space leaves the question mark alone at the start of the next line, which is why it has to be a non-breaking space — and why it so often does not survive the trip through a conversion tool, an editor or a CMS that quietly turns it back into an ordinary one.
Which do you need?
Open captions, closed captions or SDH
Three different deliverables that people often ask for by the wrong name. Here is the short version.
Open captions
Burnt inSubtitles burnt permanently into the picture. Nobody can switch them off, which is exactly what you want for social feeds that autoplay muted — and in French it settles the spacing at delivery, so no player and no re-encode can turn a non-breaking space back into one that breaks.
- Always visible
- Line breaks fixed at delivery
- Delivered as a finished video file
Closed captions
SwitchableA separate file the viewer can turn on and off, and that can carry several languages at once. The standard for YouTube, Vimeo and the streaming platforms.
- Viewer controls them
- Multiple languages from one video
- Indexed by search engines
SDH
AccessibilitySubtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing: dialogue plus speaker IDs and the sound effects and music cues that carry meaning.
- Speaker identification
- Non-dialogue audio described
- Meets accessibility requirements
Subtitles or captions? The two terms are often used interchangeably. Strictly, subtitles translate the dialogue for viewers who can hear the audio, while captions are same-language and add speaker labels and sound cues for viewers who cannot. We produce either — translated French subtitles or same-language French captions and SDH — in whichever form your platform and audience require.
What we subtitle
French subtitling for every kind of content
French subtitling arrives from two directions at once — European releases that have to satisfy France, and North American work that has to satisfy Québec — and the brief rarely says which until you ask.
Corporate & training video
Internal comms, onboarding and product training subtitled for global teams and LMS delivery.
eLearning & online courses
Timed, readable subtitles for course platforms, MOOCs and instructional video.
Documentary & factual
Festival, broadcast and streaming documentaries, including interview clean-up and on-screen text.
Advertising & social
Burnt-in captions for muted autoplay on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and paid social.
Streaming & OTT
Platform-spec subtitle and caption files for VOD, OTT and broadcast delivery.
Accessibility (SDH & closed captions)
Same-language SDH and closed captions to meet WCAG and accessibility requirements.
Events, webinars & conferences
Recorded talks, town halls and webinars captioned for on-demand viewing.
E-commerce & product video
Short product and explainer videos captioned to lift conversion and reach.
How can we help you?
Your project manager has everything covered
One point of contact from brief to delivery, and both a linguistic and a technical check on every file.
France or Canada, decided first
The territory is settled before a word is written, because it changes the punctuation rules, the register and the rate — the two are priced in different bands.
Template and translation
Where needed we build an English subtitle template first, then hand it to a subtitler who works to that territory's guide rather than to French in general.
Spacing, timing and line breaks
Subtitles are cut to 42 characters and 17 a second, with the spaces that belong to the punctuation made non-breaking so no wrap can strand a mark.
Delivery and display check
Files delivered in the format you need, opened again after conversion to confirm the non-breaking spaces are still non-breaking on the other side.
Our standards
The specs we work to
France and Canada disagree about punctuation and agree about everything technical. These are the numbers both guides publish, and what we hold a file to whoever it is for.
Maximum per line
A French question spends two
Maximum on screen
No break between mark and space
Reading speed
20 for SDH, 13 for children
Minimum duration
Seven seconds maximum
That SDH figure is worth pausing on, because it is the one most people get wrong. Accessibility subtitles are allowed to run faster — 20 characters a second for adult content against 17 for standard subtitles — precisely because they are carrying more: speaker identification, sound effects, music cues. It is not the same file with labels added, and it cannot be produced by running the standard file through a script. Budget it as its own pass, because that is what it is.
Deliverables
Professional subtitle formats
We turn translations you already own into subtitle files, or build the subtitles straight from the video, in French, English or any other language. If a timed script or a plain document is closer to what you need, we deliver that instead.
Standard text-based
Compatible with most platforms and players.
Broadcast & professional
For broadcasters, post houses and streaming delivery specs.
Burnt-in video
A finished file with the subtitles baked into the picture, spacing and all.
Need a different format? Convert SRT, VTT and more with our free subtitle converter →
| Where it's going | What we deliver |
|---|---|
| YouTube, Vimeo & LMS platforms | SRT or VTT closed captions |
| Netflix, Amazon & broadcast | IMSC, TTML or EBU-STL to platform spec |
| Instagram, TikTok & paid social | Burned-in captions in MP4 (open captions) |
| Premiere, Final Cut & DaVinci Resolve | SRT / VTT that import straight into your edit |
Not sure which you need? Tell us the destination platform and we deliver to its exact spec.
French specifics
Three rules that catch out translators who write beautiful French
The space is part of the punctuation, and the two territories disagree about it. France puts a space before a question mark and an exclamation mark; Canada does not. Both put one either side of a colon. A translator who has written French prose their whole career will apply the convention they grew up with, correctly, and hand you a file that is wrong for the other market in a way no spellcheck reports. We staff by territory for exactly this reason.
Some of the rules belong to the platform, not to the language. The France guide bans the semicolon outright rather than discouraging it, asks for a non-breaking space before % and currency signs — *2 %*, *5 $* — and specifies plain double quotation marks with no spaces rather than the guillemets French typography would normally use. That last one is the trap: a French linguist reviewing the file will often *correct* the quotes to « » and break the spec while improving the prose.
Non-breaking is a technical claim, and it has to survive the round trip. The character that holds a mark to its sentence is not the one your keyboard produces, and plenty of tools in a normal delivery chain — converters, editors, CMSs, an export to a different subtitle format — replace it with an ordinary space without telling anyone. We check the file again after conversion rather than at the point we wrote it, because that is where the loss happens.
Since 2008
Subtitling & captioning
100+
Languages covered
ISO 9001 & 14001
Certified processes
24–48h
Typical turnaround
Subtitling rates
Professional French subtitling
For single videos and straightforward content where accurate, well-timed subtitles are what you need.
- France or Canada, staffed separately
- Spacing held non-breaking
- Frame-accurate timing
For longer content and recurring projects, including transcription, SDH, burned-in subtitles and multiple output formats.
- Everything in Standard
- SDH at its own reading speed
- Both territories from one spotting pass
- Multiple output formats
Every project is quoted individually and backed by our Price Match Promise. Send us your video for an exact, no-obligation quote.
Not sure what your French subtitles will cost?
Send us the video — or just its running time — and we come back with an itemised quote: running time, languages and output formats priced line by line, with nothing hidden. No obligation, and if you find a like-for-like price lower, we will match it.
- Free, itemised quote
- No obligation
- Price Match Promise
Trusted by global brands
We have used GoLocalise on a regular basis for projects in a number of languages. The service we receive is great. The team is always friendly and professional. The voiceovers we receive are of a very high quality and the turnaround is extremely quick. We are very happy to recommend GoLocalise to other businesses.
It was a pleasure to work with David and the team at GoLocalise. David gave me lots of help and advice, guiding me through my first subtitling project. He really knows his stuff! The experience was completely pain-free. I would not hesitate to recommend GoLocalise – outstanding work at a good price.
They're reliable, adaptive and obsessed with quality. And while you can never be 100% guaranteed of perfection, you can be sure GoLocalise will go the extra mile to get it right every time. We've worked with them now for over 5 years and we are truly thankful to have such a strong localisation partner for our business.
Related services
The rest of your French project
Subtitling & captioning in more languages
Native subtitlers for corporate video, eLearning, streaming, documentary and advertising. Browse another language, or ask us about yours.
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Most common questions
Can we use our France subtitles in Québec?
They will be understood, and they will be wrong on every question mark. France puts a space before an interrogation or exclamation mark and Canada does not, so a file crossing the Atlantic carries a visible error a few hundred times over. Fixing it is not a retranslation — we re-punctuate and re-check the affected cues against the Canadian guide, which is a fraction of the cost of subtitling the video again.
Why does a space matter enough to redo a file?
Because it is not an ordinary space. It is part of the punctuation, it counts against the 42 characters a line allows, and if it is a breaking space the wrap will happen there and leave the mark stranded at the start of the next line. Readers do not think any of that consciously. They just register that the subtitles look off.
Do you deliver both territories from one job?
Yes, and it is much cheaper than two jobs. The spotting — where each subtitle starts and ends against the picture — is identical, so we do it once and then produce the two text passes on top of it. You get two files, each punctuated to its own guide, without paying twice for the timing.
Why is our French subtitler correcting the quotation marks?
Because in French prose they would be right. The platform guides ask for plain double quotation marks with no spaces, not the guillemets French typography normally calls for, and a linguist reviewing the file will often improve the prose and break the spec at the same time. Our QA pass checks the file against the delivery guide rather than against the language, which is a different question.
Is SDH just the subtitle file with speaker names added?
No, and the reading speeds say so. Standard adult subtitles run up to 17 characters a second; adult SDH is allowed 20, because it is carrying speaker identification, sound effects and music cues on top of the dialogue. Producing it means rewriting the cues to fit that different budget, not appending labels to the ones you already have.
What does French subtitling cost per minute?
From £15 per minute of video for France, which sits in our first rate band. Canadian French is priced in a higher band, from £20, and any quote moves with running time, with whether the audio needs transcribing first, with SDH or a burnt-in master, and with how many output formats leave with the job. Everything is itemised and carries the Price Match Promise.
The audio is already French. Do you caption rather than translate?
Yes, and a good share of our French work is exactly that. Same-language captions and SDH for accessibility, for compliance and for muted social feeds are a separate discipline from translating into French — the captioner is listening for speaker changes and sound, not looking for equivalents.
Which editing software do your French subtitle files import into?
All the usual ones. SRT, VTT, STL and TTML carry accents, the cedilla and the non-breaking spaces into Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Camtasia and the main online editors and players. Where a chain is known to flatten those spaces, we deliver the subtitles burnt into a finished MP4 or MOV so the spacing cannot be touched.
Ready to subtitle your video in French?
Send us your video and we'll come back with an exact, itemised quote.
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Voice over
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Translation
- 100+ languages covered
- Tailored to your needs
- Stringent quality control
- Dedicated project managers
Subtitling
- Experienced subtitlers
- Industry-standard software
- Burn-in and graphic editing
- Open and closed captions
Transcription
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