Multilingual subtitles for trade fair videos: EN, DE, AR, ZH

Why most show videos need subtitles

Most people who see your trade fair video will see it without sound: in a LinkedIn feed, on a phone between two meetings, on a screen at your stand (booth) or in a chat forwarded by a colleague. Without subtitles, an interview is a moving face and nothing more.

For international exhibitors there is a second reason. The audience for one show video is spread across several markets at once: head office at home, distributors in the region, customers in Europe, perhaps a buyer in Germany who prefers German. One video can serve all of them if the subtitles are planned from the start rather than added at the end.

Subtitles also let every interviewee speak in the language they are most confident in. A clear answer in Arabic with English subtitles works better than a hesitant answer in English. Where nobody needs to speak at all, a video without language is the alternative.

Which languages you really need

Start from the people who will watch, not from a list of languages. A practical rule: one master language, usually English, plus the languages of your two or three most important markets. Every extra language adds translation, checking and export time, so choose deliberately.

For Chinese, decide on the script before anything is translated: Simplified Chinese for mainland China, Traditional Chinese for Taiwan and Hong Kong. A mix-up is one of the errors a native reader notices immediately.

If you are unsure, ask your sales team which language your best customers write their emails in. That answer is usually more reliable than any market overview.

Burned-in subtitles or a separate file

There are two technical ways to add subtitles, and most exhibitors need both.

Burned-in subtitles

The text is part of the picture. It is always visible, on every platform and in every messenger. The downside: you need a separate video file for each language, and a typo means a new export. Burned-in subtitles are right for social media clips, screens on the stand and anything that will be forwarded.

Subtitle files (SRT or WebVTT)

The text sits in a separate file next to the video. YouTube, LinkedIn and many website players can load such files, and on YouTube and your own website one video can carry several language tracks. Viewers choose their language, and a correction does not require a new export.

A sensible package for a recap video: burned-in versions in your two most used languages, plus subtitle files for all languages. For vertical 9:16 clips, place the subtitles higher than usual, because the platform buttons and captions cover the lower part of the screen. More in our guide to Reels, Shorts and TikTok from the show.

Arabic, Persian and Chinese: what to check

Right-to-left scripts and Chinese characters are where subtitle problems usually appear, and often in the final export rather than in the translation itself.

• Connected letters. Arabic and Persian letters join within a word. Editing software that is not set up for right-to-left text can show them separated or in reverse order. Check every burned-in version on a phone before it goes out.
• Mixed direction. Product names in Latin letters, model numbers and punctuation inside an Arabic sentence can jump to the wrong position. Keep such terms short and check them line by line.
• Fonts. The font has to contain every character. Missing Chinese characters appear as empty boxes, missing Arabic letter forms as broken words.
• Line breaks in Chinese. Chinese has no spaces, so automatic line breaks can split a term in the middle. Chinese lines should also be shorter than English ones, because the characters are dense.

At Pixer we conduct interviews and write subtitles in English, German, Arabic and Persian. Chinese subtitles can be delivered via translation partners. Whatever the language, have a native speaker from your team or your distributor read the final version. Exhibitors from China will find more in our guide to German trade fairs for Chinese exhibitors.

The workflow: from recording to approved subtitles

1. Before the show: send a list of names, job titles, product names and technical terms, ideally with the approved spelling in each target language. Decide which terms stay in English in every version.
2. On the stand: interviewees speak in their strongest language. Clean sound from a clip-on microphone makes the transcript faster and more accurate. See our guide to on-stand interviews.
3. Transcript: the spoken text is written out in the original language and approved by you. It is the basis for every translation, so errors caught here do not multiply.
4. Translation and review: the approved text is translated, then read by a native speaker who knows your products.
5. Timing and layout: no more than two lines per subtitle, around 40 characters per line as a common working rule, and each subtitle stays on screen long enough to be read comfortably. Subtitles condense speech; they do not need every filler word.
6. Export: burned-in videos and subtitle files with clear names, for example recap-30s_EN.mp4, recap-30s_AR.mp4 and recap-30s_ZH-Hans.srt.

The first version, usually English, comes with the edit within 24 hours after the show ends. Further language versions follow once you have approved the source text; we agree the timing when you book. Two revision rounds are included.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• On-screen text forgotten. Name captions, claims and the end card need translating too. Keep one list of every text that appears in the video.
• Unchecked machine translation. Useful as a draft, unreliable for technical terms and product names.
• Subtitles covering the picture. Name captions, the product or the logo disappear behind the text. Plan positions before the export.
• Several languages at once. Two or three subtitle languages stacked in one picture are unreadable. One language per burned-in file.
• Different spellings. A product name written three ways in three versions looks careless. The glossary from step one prevents it.
• Planned too late. Subtitles organised after the show delay publication until the moment has passed. Decide the languages when you book.

The short version

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