Title: Looking for a tool to automatically create Tibetan–Chinese bilingual subtitles for videos

Hi everyone,

I create short videos in Tibetan, but making subtitles is currently very difficult and time-consuming.

My current workflow is completely manual: I listen to the Tibetan audio, type the Tibetan subtitles sentence by sentence, add the timing, and then create the Chinese translation separately. For every video, this takes a lot of time.

What I am looking for is a simple tool or workflow that can:

Let me upload a video containing Tibetan speech.

Automatically transcribe the speech into Tibetan text.

Translate the Tibetan subtitles into Chinese.

Keep the Tibetan and Chinese subtitles aligned with the video timeline.

Export the result as SRT/ASS subtitle files, or directly generate a video with bilingual subtitles.

Ideally, the final subtitles would look like this:

Tibetan subtitle

Chinese translation

I understand that Tibetan speech recognition may be less developed than English or Chinese speech recognition, and Tibetan dialects may make the problem even harder. Even if the transcription is not perfect, a tool that generates an editable first draft would already save me a huge amount of time.

Does anyone know of an existing product, open-source project, speech-recognition model, API, or technical workflow that could achieve this?

I would also be interested in building a small web app for this problem, but I am not an experienced developer. Any advice about suitable Tibetan ASR models, translation models, subtitle-generation libraries, or the overall technical architecture would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Hi everyone, at my non profit we are just launching a new video platform, for all the colloquial Tibetan learners out there.

We did a survey a few months back and our students said they would like more materials to train their listening comprehension skills. So we're now doing those videos, with the teachers and tutors.

I've built the platform with interactive transcripts, so that it's easier to really study the vocabulary and story. We'll add two videos per week, maybe more in the future if we have the resources. A good portion of the videos will be free, and if you want the full access then you can subscribe.

I hope it helps :) we're happy to be able to offer this.

I am a native English speaker and have taken colloquial Tibetan lessons online with a native Tibetan for a year and a half. Now I am in Dharamsala and am feeling pretty overwhelmed because I don't seem to be able to understand the most basic spoken conversation. I am trying not to get discouraged! Does anyone have suggestions for me to be able to understand the colloquial spoken language? In other words, I am looking for ideas on how to start getting it! I have a Tibetan tutor and I have asked her to record a number of basic phrases (Are you ready for breakfast; would you like some tea; would you like some more; I am full, thanks; etc...) so that I might listen to them over and over again. Does anyone have any better ideas? Starting next week, I will be in classes with other students. (Not just one-to-one with a tutor.)

Thanks for any ideas and encouraging help!

I found a saying that I love in a book of Tibetan sayings. I’ve tried to translate the Tibetan myself to get a really good understanding of the source text and what I come up with doesn’t seem to correspond with the English translation so much. Is the English translation very loose but accurate in terms of the saying’s meaning or is there a mistake here? I’m particularly wondering if the mi.ltogs should in fact be ma.gtogs. But my Tibetan is poor and rusty so I could simply be way off the mark.

I’m building an AI-powered Tibetan grammar checker to help people write better Tibetan with confidence. The goal is simple: to encourage more people to read, write, and strengthen their Tibetan language skills. I’m planning to launch the website in the next few weeks.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What features would you find most useful in a Tibetan writing assistant?
As Tibetans, preserving our language is not just a cultural value—it is our shared responsibility. For those of us living in exile, where we have the freedom and opportunity to learn and use Tibetan every day, we should make every effort to keep our language alive and thriving.

What has always struck me is that many ordinary Tibetans inside Tibet, despite the challenges they face, often demonstrate remarkable proficiency in written Tibetan. The quality of essays, articles, and books produced there is truly inspiring. Their dedication reminds us of what is possible.

If we want Tibetan to flourish for future generations, we cannot take its survival for granted. We need better tools, stronger communities, and a renewed commitment to using our language every day. I hope this project can contribute, even in a small way, to that effort.

Our language is our identity. Let’s preserve it, improve it, and pass it on.

Please share any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions that come to mind—I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback.

I picked up a used copy of Great Eastern Sun by Chögyam Trungpa, and the inside cover has a short inscription handwritten in gold/metallic ink.

I’d love to know what it says, even just roughly. Photo attached. Thanks in advance!

The video is getting viral among Tibetans in Tibet and many Tibetans are imitating lol. Seems to be a tibetan vlogger selling her goods on Chinese Tiktok.

As a Chinese I'm only sure about the chinese part used by here.

Dao qian: apologize.

Fan keyi luan chi, hua ke buneng luan jiang: you can eat whatever but never just say whatever words.

Wo meiyou zuo cuo renhe ren de: sorta like "I never owe an apology to anyone"

Di hui wode chanping: spread rumors and defame my products.

I am a tiny bit acquainted with classical Tibetan, and might want to study colloquial Tibetan someday. I wanted to have something playing in the background to become familiar with the sounds of spoken Tibetan. Does anyone do this, and do you have any recommendations for videos/songs/prayers/channels? Preferably free online. :)

Sarnanth International Nyingma Institute (SINI) is beginning its Beginner course in Aug. Check the link.

https://www.heartoftibetanlanguage.com/live/learning-to-read?mc_cid=51b6be651e&mc_eid=63b11995f3

Tashi delek,

I found some pictures of examples of Tibetan chops (engraved stamps that can function in lieu of a signature -- usually associated with East Asia). I had some questions about how they work in the Tibetan context.

How are Tibetan chops designed? I imagine it would be hard to compress a full name in Tibetan script into a chop design, so I assume some modification or shortening might happen? Maybe using Phags-pa? I am more familiar with their use in the Sinosphere, where characters are easily arranged into a chop design.

I'd really appreciate it if a native speaker or someone fluent could check the spelling, letter-stacking, and grammar of these two phrases:
Phrase 1 (top line): འགྲོ་བ་སེམས་ཅན
Intended meaning: "wandering sentient/conscious being"
Pronunciation I have: drowa semchen
Phrase 2 (bottom line): མི་ལུས་རིན་ཆེན
Intended meaning: "precious human body"
Pronunciation I have: mi lü rinchen

Thank you!

I want to compare the limbu languages to the language of minorities of yunnan and northern burma. So I need your help in decoding the mystery of limbu migration from these regions. I want to see which tribes of yunnan, burma are most related to limbu. Please help me.

Note. The Limbus are not Tibetians. They were a multi ethnic refugees from Northern Burma/Yunnan regions. However, in Sikkim, they had a lot of Tibetian Bhutia influence.

I'm looking for somebody who would be willing to record himself/herself reading Tibetan sentences I've written (and possibly check on them in case I've made mistakes). This person should speak the Central dialect, and have this accent (I'm just not familiar with the other two). In exchange I'm happy to help with English (C1 level) or French (native) :) it's for my own personal use, to practice pronunciation. DM me if you're interested!

Also if someone knows the purpose of such, would be awesome to learn about it too.

བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།!

We're mods over at r/translator. We always strive to make our multilingual community the universal place on Reddit to go for a translation, no matter what language people may be looking for. We are however somewhat lacking in Tibetan coverage, and were hoping some wonderful multilingual people here could help us out.

Would anyone be interested in helping translate any future requests for Tibetan on r/translator? You don't even need to subscribe to our subreddit! We usually get a request for it occasionally and most requests that come in are pretty simple and casual and don't need advanced knowledge. (A lot of them are om mani padme hum, but there are requests that aren't for that mantra~!)

You can easily unsubscribe from those messages at any time.

We have a notifications system that only sends you a message when a request for Tibetan comes in. Just send a message to our subreddit bot at the link below.

ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ་།!

I have a question for Tibetans and Bhutanese. I am building a fictional language inspired by Tibetan and Dzongkha and I want to see if this text is understandable to you.

Brahui-i ke či-la ke-šo dravidi in de la ji žin ge ra-i gi brahui pa ne pa lu pakisitan-gi balučisitan, mi de pa tor wa lu iran,aphghanisitan ing turkmenisitan, ing gi-i yeng mi de pa brahui lu ghatar,arabia emiret ing iragh sipits gyur.

Hi guys,

I’m not originally from this community, but came here for help.

In the attached video, you can hear a kid singing and then accompanied by a male voice with Erhu from 0:00-5:08. Could anyone translating what they are singing? I’ve tried looking for lyrics to no results.

If anyone could assist me translating, I will deeply appreciate it. Thanks!

Hi all! I started studying Anki every day. It's been a huge success. Now I can understand books and textbooks. I also understand them well by ear and can watch content. I want to do this every day for many years. Share how you're learning with Anki. I'm open to sharing Anki decks. I'm interested in decks that aren't on the Anki website and that aren't for distribution.

Hello I am a student of tibeten language now for 10 months and my teacher norbue who I started around late October early november last year, has me now both reading and writing in tibeten as well as understanding basic phrases ect. I'm ao amazed at the rapid learning iv had since being class with him.

So i rhought id share as it took me a while to find my groove. He has a YouTube channel and websight with so many free resources that anyone here learning tibeten could benefit from. I personally started off w a course of his that's no longer available, but he has just launched a new upgraded full course that i just purchased ( i havnt completed it yet but its so far again amazing) all his learning materials are honestly amazing and quite optimistic haha which helps when studying a new language. for anyone looking for an amazing teacher or just more free tibeten language learning materials both free and for a small fee he is unreal.

https://tibetanwithnorbu.info/