I was trying to translate from English to Chinese using OpenAI. However, the translation does not really follow line by line and at the end of the translate there is a lot blank space which there should also have translation. Not sure what should i do here. (order ID #JeOUnZVXXXX)
Currently there is only option for Chinese (in Open AI) which is simplified chinese, may i know if there will be traditional chinese as option in the future?
Thanks for trying out the service and sorry for the trouble. This missing or misaligned translation is unfortunately is still a problem in some translator models. You can try a different translator and/or model to see if this helps. You can read more about the reason and workarounds here: https://blog.syedgakbar.com/subtitles-translator-faq/#misaligned-translation
Regarding your other query, I have now added Traditional Chinese language in OpenAI, Gemini and DeepSeek translator options. It seems to work, but only a native speaker can tell if it’s working perfectly.
#8X3XpZo0AXXXX
Good morning Akbar
I have now tried the newly available models
‘Gemini 2.5’ and “Gemini 2.5 Flash” several times.
The desired translation is always from English to German
However, every time I get an error message with the output “error.txt” indicating that the translation is still in progress. However, the translation was cancelled each time.
I have tried different subtitles for different series, and I always get the same error message, both with ‘Gemini 2.5’ and ‘Gemini 2.5 Flash’.
Am I the only user experiencing this problem, or are there others?
I would appreciate it if you could take a look at this problem.
Best regards
Matthias
Thank you Matthias for trying these new models and sorry for the trouble. Yeah, few other users have reported this partial success issue recently as well.
However, I’m still to reproduce and isolate this issue. When you get this problem, do you get that green “Success” message? Obviously, the order is not being charged and is still incomplete. But it looks like webpage script some how thinks that translate is complete. I can see that it’s not happening for all your translations, so if you can help me find reproduce steps, it would be fantastic.
Just a quick update. I think this issue is now all sorted and translation should be working properly as before. Thank you for reporting this me and your patiance.
Sorry for the trouble there. I see one successful translation from your use account and you can access it by going to following page after signing-in: https://www.syedgakbar.com/projects/user-subtitles
You can also download and print invoices from this page for you old translation order. For any failed translations, you are not charged.
PS. I have a top-up your account to let you try these out. Please let me know if you want to try more and run out of balance.
It’s hard to say in few sentences, but overall it’s improvement for sure – mainly in reasoning but in the translation tasks too. You can read more about this model capabilities and improvements here: https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-1/
That said, I think there might be value in introducing the mini and nano variants of this 4.1 series – as these might simply suit better in few translation pairs.
Sorry for the trouble there. Which translator you are using? From your description, it looks like a translator issue, which is normally not under my direct control. I would suggest changing the translator and/or the model and see if that makes any difference.
PayPal seem to restrict some type of cards in few regions on my website. I still don’t know why, but I would suggest to first load balance in your PayPal account and then try to top-up form that already loaded balance. Otherwise, you can try Stripe which support popular Credit/Debit Cards transactions too.
I am trying to translate chinese srt file to english, but it’s not working. It stucks at 20% or 10% or 40% , etc. It’s not the same case for all the chinese srt but about 50% of chinese srt files have the same issue. Can you please check. One of these files is :- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BzbVvgIOJtvXXXXXXX/view?usp=sharing
Thank you for reporting this back to me and sharing a sample file. This is really of help. Unfortunately, I don’t have a solution/fix for you at the moment.
It’s an interesting one because here the translation widget seem to be all working fine, except that Google Translator for some reason decides to not translate majority of the rows. I played with it and tried to trigger the changes manually, but nothing seems to be of help. If I translate the content to some other language first using other translator like Yandex or Gemini, then Google translate it fine afterwards. I think this has to do something with the Tradition Chinese content on an English website. I will keep exploring the workarounds, but for now, I would suggest to try any of the other available translator.
If you are looking for free one, Yandex seem to do the translation of this file correctly. Though I’m not sure about the overall quality of it.
Thank you again for this service and the free and premium options – truly one of, if not the most, all round, reliable sites for subtitle translations.
Although the error message for translations that aren’t complete suggests one’s Internet connection I am inclined to think it is something within the original file such as a ‘character’ – visible or not – or formatting. It’s not something I’ve looked deeper into but it definitely seems to be specific files causing the problem.
Do you happen to have additional information regarding that possibility?
Thanks for the nice comments and sharing your issue. Well, the error message you get could be many thing. It’s just a generic error when the translator is not able to fully translate the file. While, internet connection is most of the time reason, it could be due to various other reasons too, e.g.:
– When using Google and Yandex, the translation is normally rate-limited – by user session and/or the IP.
– Translation may be skipped for few lines if these are not of the language of the overall page/content.
– It might also fail due to problem with some bug in my code which tries to workaround limitation of only visible content translation.
If you can provide me a link of subtitle file where you are consistently running into an issue, I’m happy to investigate further and try to fix it properly.
I’ll try to save the file next time I have the same/similar issue although I am leaning toward point number two: “– Translation may be skipped for few lines if these are not of the language of the overall page/content.” If only with the technology we have today error messages couldn’t be more specific.
Yeah, you are right. Most of the error messages can be improved to guide user on what went wrong there. I will try to improve these messages in near future. Thanks for your suggestions and persistence.
Wow thanks so much. you have made it so easy
Hi Akbar,
Thank you for this wonderful tool!
I was trying to translate from English to Chinese using OpenAI. However, the translation does not really follow line by line and at the end of the translate there is a lot blank space which there should also have translation. Not sure what should i do here. (order ID #JeOUnZVXXXX)
Currently there is only option for Chinese (in Open AI) which is simplified chinese, may i know if there will be traditional chinese as option in the future?
Thanks a lot!
Hi Dally,
Thanks for trying out the service and sorry for the trouble. This missing or misaligned translation is unfortunately is still a problem in some translator models. You can try a different translator and/or model to see if this helps. You can read more about the reason and workarounds here:
https://blog.syedgakbar.com/subtitles-translator-faq/#misaligned-translation
Regarding your other query, I have now added Traditional Chinese language in OpenAI, Gemini and DeepSeek translator options. It seems to work, but only a native speaker can tell if it’s working perfectly.
Regards, Akbar
Thank you so much ! This is a very helpful site.
#8X3XpZo0AXXXX
Good morning Akbar
I have now tried the newly available models
‘Gemini 2.5’ and “Gemini 2.5 Flash” several times.
The desired translation is always from English to German
However, every time I get an error message with the output “error.txt” indicating that the translation is still in progress. However, the translation was cancelled each time.
I have tried different subtitles for different series, and I always get the same error message, both with ‘Gemini 2.5’ and ‘Gemini 2.5 Flash’.
Am I the only user experiencing this problem, or are there others?
I would appreciate it if you could take a look at this problem.
Best regards
Matthias
Thank you Matthias for trying these new models and sorry for the trouble. Yeah, few other users have reported this partial success issue recently as well.
However, I’m still to reproduce and isolate this issue. When you get this problem, do you get that green “Success” message? Obviously, the order is not being charged and is still incomplete. But it looks like webpage script some how thinks that translate is complete. I can see that it’s not happening for all your translations, so if you can help me find reproduce steps, it would be fantastic.
Regards, Akbar
Just a quick update. I think this issue is now all sorted and translation should be working properly as before. Thank you for reporting this me and your patiance.
Regards, Akbar
I need help with my paid translate. it got an error and now I cant get back to it. can you top up my balance please so I can retry?
Hi Gilad,
Sorry for the trouble there. I see one successful translation from your use account and you can access it by going to following page after signing-in:
https://www.syedgakbar.com/projects/user-subtitles
You can also download and print invoices from this page for you old translation order. For any failed translations, you are not charged.
PS. I have a top-up your account to let you try these out. Please let me know if you want to try more and run out of balance.
Regards, Akbar
Thank you very much, you are the best!
Is GPT-4.1 essentially a straight improvement over 4o?
It’s hard to say in few sentences, but overall it’s improvement for sure – mainly in reasoning but in the translation tasks too. You can read more about this model capabilities and improvements here:
https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-1/
That said, I think there might be value in introducing the mini and nano variants of this 4.1 series – as these might simply suit better in few translation pairs.
Regards, Akbar
Traditional Chinese characters are often intermingled with simplified Chinese characters in the results.
Sorry for the trouble there. Which translator you are using? From your description, it looks like a translator issue, which is normally not under my direct control. I would suggest changing the translator and/or the model and see if that makes any difference.
Regards, Akbar
Why my PayPal is not accepted for translation payments
PayPal seem to restrict some type of cards in few regions on my website. I still don’t know why, but I would suggest to first load balance in your PayPal account and then try to top-up form that already loaded balance. Otherwise, you can try Stripe which support popular Credit/Debit Cards transactions too.
Regards, Akbar
I am trying to translate chinese srt file to english, but it’s not working. It stucks at 20% or 10% or 40% , etc. It’s not the same case for all the chinese srt but about 50% of chinese srt files have the same issue. Can you please check. One of these files is :- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BzbVvgIOJtvXXXXXXX/view?usp=sharing
Thank you for reporting this back to me and sharing a sample file. This is really of help. Unfortunately, I don’t have a solution/fix for you at the moment.
It’s an interesting one because here the translation widget seem to be all working fine, except that Google Translator for some reason decides to not translate majority of the rows. I played with it and tried to trigger the changes manually, but nothing seems to be of help. If I translate the content to some other language first using other translator like Yandex or Gemini, then Google translate it fine afterwards. I think this has to do something with the Tradition Chinese content on an English website. I will keep exploring the workarounds, but for now, I would suggest to try any of the other available translator.
If you are looking for free one, Yandex seem to do the translation of this file correctly. Though I’m not sure about the overall quality of it.
Regards, Akbar
thanks a lot Akbar
Hello Akbar,
Thank you again for this service and the free and premium options – truly one of, if not the most, all round, reliable sites for subtitle translations.
Although the error message for translations that aren’t complete suggests one’s Internet connection I am inclined to think it is something within the original file such as a ‘character’ – visible or not – or formatting. It’s not something I’ve looked deeper into but it definitely seems to be specific files causing the problem.
Do you happen to have additional information regarding that possibility?
Thanks for the nice comments and sharing your issue. Well, the error message you get could be many thing. It’s just a generic error when the translator is not able to fully translate the file. While, internet connection is most of the time reason, it could be due to various other reasons too, e.g.:
– When using Google and Yandex, the translation is normally rate-limited – by user session and/or the IP.
– Translation may be skipped for few lines if these are not of the language of the overall page/content.
– It might also fail due to problem with some bug in my code which tries to workaround limitation of only visible content translation.
If you can provide me a link of subtitle file where you are consistently running into an issue, I’m happy to investigate further and try to fix it properly.
Regards, Akbar
I’ll try to save the file next time I have the same/similar issue although I am leaning toward point number two: “– Translation may be skipped for few lines if these are not of the language of the overall page/content.” If only with the technology we have today error messages couldn’t be more specific.
Yeah, you are right. Most of the error messages can be improved to guide user on what went wrong there. I will try to improve these messages in near future. Thanks for your suggestions and persistence.
Regards, Akbar