Hausa subtitle generator

What Hausa transcription looks like

Hausa is a major West African language usually written in the Latin-based Boko alphabet, with hooked letters ɓ, ɗ, ƙ and ƴ. An Arabic-based Ajami tradition also exists, but the browser draft normally returns Boko. VoiceToTextFree transcribes Hausa locally, then you review names, loanwords and hooked letters before exporting SRT, VTT or TXT. Hooked letters and loanword spellings are the main review points.

Script and punctuation in Hausa

Hausa's Boko alphabet uses hooked consonants ɓ, ɗ, ƙ and ƴ, plus digraphs such as sh and ts. Tone and vowel length are rarely marked in everyday writing, so the model usually returns unmarked text. Ajami is a separate Arabic-based writing tradition and is not the default output. Everyday spelling also varies between markets and publishers.

Common Hausa transcription pitfalls

Hooked letters are frequently normalised to plain b, d, k or y, which changes the word on screen. The hooks are meaningful, not decorative. Ajami Arabic-script text is not the default output, so a source written in Ajami will not match the draft. Arabic and English loanwords may be spelled several ways, and the model can choose a different convention. Personal names, towns and titles have variable spellings, especially when English transliteration is involved, so keep a glossary. Tone and vowel length are unmarked, so a reviewer must infer meaning from context and audio.

Tips for cleaner Hausa subtitles

• Restore the hooked letters ɓ, ɗ, ƙ and ƴ wherever the source uses Boko orthography.
• Keep a glossary of recurring names, religious terms and place names with one agreed spelling, and do not mix variants.
• Leave established Arabic and English loanwords in the form your audience expects or translate them deliberately.
• Do not invent tone marks; standard Hausa writing usually leaves them out.
• Choose Western digits or spelled-out numbers consistently, then test prices and dates in the player.
• Break cues at clause boundaries and split any cue that mixes Hausa with a long English phrase. Never split a word.

Line length and timing for Hausa

Hausa captions use a Latin alphabet, but hooked letters and loanwords can make a cue look denser than its character count suggests. Keep to two lines, break at natural pauses, and give the text enough vertical room for descenders. Check the longest cue on a phone before publishing. Long names can force an early break.

Who this Hausa workflow helps

Useful for radio and television clips, health and agriculture explainers, religious teaching, school materials and YouTube interviews that mix Hausa with English. A local draft helps editors produce a searchable transcript or a reviewed Hausa caption track without uploading private audio. They also suit community radio archives.