If you are studying Japanese and you have an interest in Japanese anime, dramas, or movies, I highly recommend watching them in Japanese with Japanese language subtitles. This is really helpful for listening comprehension, and is a great way to practice Japanese in an enjoyable way.
The view Japanese videos with Japanese subtitles, you will need:
* VLC media player
* Japanese videos (Dramas, anime, movies, etc.)
* Japanese subtitle files
VLC Media Player
VLC media player is available on all operation systems (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), and more importantly, it plays all of the subtitle file formats. It also plays just about every movie file format there is as well. Windows Media Player and Quicktime only work with a limited number of subtitle formats and media file types. Just use VLC and you will not have to worry if your media player can load the subtitles.
Once you have VLC, there are some minor settings you need to adjust.
Open Tools → Preferences.
Go to the Subtitles & On Screen Display Settings
For the Default encoding, change this to Universal (UTF-8) if it ins’t already set to that.
Save the settings and VLC is ready to go.
Japanese Subtitle Files
Subtitle files are plain text files with a transcript of all the spoken dialog timestamped to when it should appear on the screen to align with the audio. Subtitles are usually “ripped” from a digital broadcast, but sometimes they are transcribed by hand.
The two main subtitle file formats you will run across are .srt and .ass files.
SubRip (.srt) subtitles are very basic. Because of this, they load very quickly and work with a lot of media players (but you are using VLC so this is not a concern). SRT subtitles just display text. These files are good for dialog and a lot of dramas use these types of files.
Here is an example of the plain text srt subtitles (Japanese):
Advanced Substation Alpha (.ass) subtitles are more advanced than .srt files. These subtitles can display a wide variety of type-faces and fonts, and can position and style text in very dynamic ways. This file format is also plain text, but because of the the fonts and positions are more complicated than standard subtitles, the video will take a few moments to prerender these before the video starts.
These subtitles are often used in anime and historical dramas. Historical dramas often need translation notes to explain signs and names that might appear on the screen, as well as supplemental information about historical figures, places, and events. Anime also has these as well as karaoke lyrics highlighted in real time for theme songs.
Here is an example of the more advanced .ass subtitles (English):
To play a video with subtitles, the subtitle file name must be the same as the video file name, with the exception of the file extension. For example:
Video file: SchoolDrama.mp4
Subtitle file: SchoolDrama.srt
Something you might see is an extra language file extension. A video might have subtitle files for multiple languages. In this case it will look something like this, assuming Japanese.
Video file: SamuraiAnime.mkv
Subtitle file: SamuraiAnime.jp.ass
As long as you only have the Japanese subtitle file, it will play automatically with the video. On the other hand, if you have multiple subtitle language files, you will need to manually select what language subtitles you want to display in VLC, or set the default subtitles to be Japanese.
Here are a few sites that provide Japanese language subtitles to a variety of shows:
Dramas: D-Addicts.com
Anime: Kitsunekko.net
As long as you use VLC and name the subtitle file correctly, it is really easy to watch Japanese videos with Japanese subtitles.
Hey,thanks for the info.
I was searching on how to do these things.
Keep up the good work. 😀
Thanks. This is very helpful.
I use .avi files. I’ve had a huge problem trying to get .srt files to show Japanese characters. It’s mostly boxes or sometimes odd characters. I’ve fiddled with the utf-8, and using different encoding, etc.
Any advice?
-Gavin
Galvin,
First make sure your system can normally display Japanese fonts. Then, once you have verified this, open up the subtitle file with a text editor like Notepad or gEdit or something and verify that the Japanese text displays properly there. If everything seems OK, it is probably a setting in the video player. VLC out of the box should be set up to do this, but try messing with different subtitle and font settings and see what happens.
Also, it is possible that the subtitle file is broken or corrupt. Try a few different files on different videos to see if you can get anything working.
Hello,
With iL10Nz application, you can localize SRT files online.
Have a look at this article how to proceed
http://www.myl10n.net/wordpress/2011/09/09/localizing-srt-for-your-video-subtitles/
enjoy!!
Olivier
I have been having exactly the same problem as Gavin. Japanese characters in subtitles don’t display well in the VLC media player. I have been fiddling with the different options and fonts with no result. The Japanese text displays perfectly well when I open the .srt file with another software, like Subtitle workshop, for example.
Gavin, did you manage to solve your problem?
Thanks!
The problem described by Gavin and Esther occurs, in my case, in the VLC Player Version 2.0.0 Twoflower (Intel 64bit) for mac. I couldn’t solve this problem either. Since the VLC Player Version 1.1.12 The Luggage (Intel 64bit) always worked well, i am still using this version.
I just solved the problem for VLC 2.0.0 Version:
Go to your preferences -> Subtitles & OSD
Change Font to “Arial Unicode MS”.
Restart VLC.
I got the subtitles to work on MS UI Gothic and Japanese (7bits JIS/ISO-2022-JP-2)on VLC but now I’m having trouble synchronizing the subtitles. How do you synchronize it? I’m using the movie Princess Monooke to practice with. Do any of you have any ideas?
Hi,
I have the same problem as Gavin and Esther. When I open up the .srt file in TextEdit (I’m using a Mac), the text is displayed as strange symbols NOT Japanese characters. This is really frustrating and I’ve spent several hours searching the net for a solution. Any help would be very much appreciated.
I think I have all the fonts properly installed so I don’t know why it won’t display Japanese characters.
Thanks in advance
Within the VLC preferences, I got the Japanese subs to work every time by changing the font to MS UI Gothic, and the default encoding to Japanese (Shift JIS). MS UI Gothic is usually what Microsoft Word recognizes any Japanese text as, so it makes sense that this font works.
If you are using Windows, you should probably make sure you have the language bar installed so that you have the ability to type Japanese–because then you will have the ability to see the characters for sure. There is a similar thing you need to download if you are using a Mac.
thank you emir, that solved it for me 🙂
rbeort’s advice worked for me. Thanks. The key was to save those settings. Close VCL and then open up the movie file in VCL again.
rbeort YOU ARE A CHAMP!!!!! after hours of searching and trying… your advice actually works!!!! I can finally read Japanese subs!!!!
BIG THANKS BIG TIME!!!!
Hi, I try to open a “.str” document with vlc, but nothing happen. It looks like it try to open for half a second than he refresh like nothing happen. I did put the aria Unicode MS but I don’t know what to do ^^’
Hi!
I also have a problem with VLC. I have change the aria in arian Unicode MS. But when I click to launch the video. It looks like he try to do it for half a seconde then, he refresh as nothing has happened.
Have you got any ideas?
I am using a MAC OS X, followed Rbeort’s instructions and it worked like a charm. THANK YOU so much! I downloaded japanese subtitles for The Walking Dead in .srt format. Couldn’t get it displayed on my MSPlayer Extended. Scoured the internet for ages until I decided to download a VLC player. Under VLC’s preferences, I set the default encoding to JIS according to Rbeort’s advice. I didn’t change my font type but it still worked 😀 I hope this information helps someone.
Great article!
You can also use kanasubs.com to segment the sentences and convert the kanji in the subtitles to kana or romaji. I find it much easier to read this way (I’m the developer, so I may be a little biased).
There are other options like kanji/jukugo exceptions for memorized kanji and automatic translation to any language you like.
Once you get subtitles working, if they are not synchronized to the movie or show, you can use g and h to adjust the timing of when they appear. Subs can be up to 30 seconds off!
It shows in milliseconds; 10000ms is 10 seconds.
Alright so this is kinda late but the subs i download from kitsunekko are always timed false. For example Nanatsu no Taizai EP 1 : the first dialogue begins at 00:00:23 whereas the subs begin at 00:00:58. If I change the times in the textfile for the subs they won’t even display anymore. Help me please !!!
PEOPLE!!
Do this:
Open VLC
Press CTRL + P to open Preferences
click Subtitles / OSD
Change: Default Encodeing – Japanese (Shift-JIS)
Change: Font – MS UI Gothic (Make sure its MS UI Gothic NOT JUST ‘MS GOTHIC’)
Click Save
CLOSE VLC!!!
OPEN VLC
LOAD YOUR SUBTITLE FILE
Yasss!
Thank you so much for this thread. Trying to organise watching one of my favourite movies with subtitles for my Dutch and Japanese housemates. Dutch was Easy. Japanese…
Still haven’t found a .srt file for V for Vendetta although they have the trailer in Japanese on Youtube so it must be somewhere.
At least now I have got the system working with Avengers ;p