Subtitling · Ukrainian
Ukrainian subtitling services
Native Ukrainian subtitlers for corporate video, eLearning, documentary, broadcast and advertising. Delivered with every Ukrainian letter intact, in the format your platform requires. Part of a full Ukrainian language service: subtitles, voice over scripts, and translation of any content you need.
About Ukrainian subtitling
Cyrillic is not one alphabet, and the difference costs you four letters
Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic, but four of its thirty-three letters — і, ї, є and ґ — do not exist in Russian. Any pipeline that treats Cyrillic as a single thing loses exactly those four, and і is one of the most frequent letters in the language, so the damage is on nearly every line rather than in the occasional word.
The apostrophe is the other one. In Ukrainian it is part of the word, not punctuation: it blocks palatalisation, as in *ім'я*. Subtitle specs ask for the plain straight apostrophe, and a smart-quotes autocorrect silently replaces it with a typographic one inside the word.
At GoLocalise, we work with native Ukrainian subtitlers, deliver files that are Ukrainian rather than generically Cyrillic, and check the four letters and the apostrophes have survived the encoding, the font and whatever the file passes through after we hand it over.
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 Ukrainian it settles the characters at delivery, with no dependency on the player's encoding or font.
- Always visible
- Characters 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 Ukrainian subtitles or same-language Ukrainian captions and SDH — in whichever form your platform and audience require.
What we subtitle
Ukrainian subtitling for every kind of content
Ukrainian subtitling covers a large IT and outsourcing sector, institutional and NGO communication, and a domestic broadcast industry with an audience now spread across Europe — so the same file frequently has to work for viewers inside and outside the country. These are the formats we handle most.
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.
Brief review
We review your video, your audience and the player, including how the file is encoded and whether anything downstream will treat it as Russian.
Template and translation
Where needed, we create an English subtitle template first, then send it to a native Ukrainian subtitler.
Timing and quality checks
Subtitles are timed against the video and checked for reading speed, line length, the four Ukrainian-only letters, apostrophe form, and format compliance.
Delivery and display check
Files delivered in the format you need, with і, ї, є and ґ confirmed in the destination font rather than assumed.
Our standards
The specs we work to
Readable subtitles are a matter of measurable limits, not opinion. These are the defaults we apply to Ukrainian unless your style guide says otherwise.
Maximum per line
37 for broadcast delivery
Maximum on screen
Bottom-weighted, centred
Reading speed
13 for children's content
Minimum duration
Seven seconds maximum
Ukrainian runs longer than English once case endings replace the prepositions English needs, so the subtitler works to fit the meaning inside the character limit instead of pushing reading speed past what a viewer can comfortably follow. Condensing, not overflowing, is the job.
Deliverables
Professional subtitle formats
We adapt your existing translations into subtitle format or create subtitles from scratch, in Ukrainian, English or any other language. And if the project needs a timed script or a plain document instead, we deliver that too.
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, every Ukrainian letter included.
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.
Ukrainian specifics
One letter was abolished for fifty-seven years
ґ was removed from the Ukrainian alphabet in 1933 and only restored in 1990. That gap is why so much software never made room for it: the Russian encoding of the Soviet era had no space for the Ukrainian letters at all, and a separate standard had to be written to carry them. Files and fonts built on the older assumption are still in circulation, and they fail on precisely these four characters.
This is a different failure from the one Romanian has, and worth separating. In Romanian the right letter exists and the wrong lookalike gets substituted. In Ukrainian the letters are simply missing from the neighbouring language's character set — so instead of a subtly wrong glyph you get an empty box, a question mark, or a file that an auto-detector has quietly decided is Russian.
Around 32 million people speak Ukrainian natively, and the written standard moved recently: the 2019 orthography restored forms suppressed in the 1930s, and its five-year transition closed in May 2024, after which the older spellings are treated as incorrect. Subtitle libraries and glossaries assembled before then are worth re-checking, and our subtitlers work to the current standard.
Since 2008
Subtitling & captioning
100+
Languages covered
ISO 9001 & 14001
Certified processes
24–48h
Typical turnaround
Subtitling rates
Professional Ukrainian subtitling
For single videos and straightforward content where accurate, well-timed subtitles are what you need.
- Native Ukrainian subtitler
- і, ї, є and ґ checked
- Frame-accurate timing
For longer content and recurring projects, including transcription, SDH, burned-in subtitles and multiple output formats.
- Everything in Standard
- Transcription and template
- SDH and burnt-in
- 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.
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 Ukrainian project
Subtitling & captioning in more languages
Native subtitlers for corporate video, eLearning, streaming, documentary and advertising. Browse another language, or ask us about yours.
Most common questions
Why do some Ukrainian characters disappear from my subtitle file?
Because four Ukrainian letters — і, ї, є and ґ — do not exist in Russian, and a lot of software still treats Cyrillic as one thing. A file auto-detected as Russian, or rendered in a font subset built for Russian, drops exactly those four. We deliver files encoded and checked as Ukrainian, and confirm them in the font your player uses.
Is Ukrainian just Russian in a different accent, for subtitling purposes?
No, and treating it that way is what causes most of the technical problems we see. They are separate languages with separate alphabets, separate vocabulary and separate spelling rules, and a Ukrainian audience notices immediately. We subtitle Ukrainian with native Ukrainian subtitlers, not by adapting a Russian file.
Why does the apostrophe in Ukrainian subtitles matter so much?
Because it is part of the word rather than punctuation — it blocks palatalisation, as in ім'я. Subtitle specs call for the plain straight apostrophe, and a smart-quotes setting will replace it with a typographic one inside the word, which is both wrong and off spec. We check the form before delivery.
Does the 2019 spelling reform affect my existing Ukrainian subtitles?
It can. The reform restored a set of older forms and ran a five-year transition that closed in 2024, so material written to the previous standard now reads as out of date. If you have a subtitle library or a glossary assembled before then, we can flag what has changed rather than silently mixing the two.
How much does Ukrainian subtitling cost?
Ukrainian subtitling is priced per minute of video, from £18. Cost also depends on running time, whether transcription is needed first, whether you need SDH or burned-in output, and how many formats you require. Every job is quoted individually with our Price Match Promise.
Do you also add same-language Ukrainian captions, not just translated subtitles?
Yes. Alongside translating into Ukrainian, we produce same-language Ukrainian captions and SDH — the closed captioning teams need for accessibility and muted social. If your footage is already in Ukrainian and you just want accurate on-screen captions, that is core to our Ukrainian captioning service.
Can you work from my existing transcript or SRT file?
Absolutely. If you have a transcript or SRT we spot and time from it, checking first whether the Ukrainian-only letters and the apostrophes survived however the file was last saved. Otherwise we transcribe the Ukrainian audio first. Every file gets the same linguistic and technical QA.
Which editing software are your subtitle files compatible with?
All the common ones. We deliver SRT, VTT, STL and TTML that keep і, ї, є and ґ intact into Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and the major online editors — or burnt into the picture as a finished MP4/MOV, which removes any dependency on the viewer's font.
Ready to subtitle your video in Ukrainian?
Send us your video and we'll come back with an exact, itemised quote.
Worth reading before you brief
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Voice over
- State-of-the-art studios
- Neumann microphones
- On-hand sound engineers
- 1,000+ voice actors
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
- Improve accessibility
- Reach a wider audience
- Boost SEO and video views
- Maximise video engagement