Question 1

How is keigo (polite Japanese) translated?

Accepted Answer

Honorific and humble forms are translated into natural English rather than literally, so a formal business exchange reads as polite, professional English. English has no direct equivalent of keigo, so the level of politeness is flattened; the Japanese original shows exactly how it was said.

Question 2

Are Japanese names transcribed correctly?

Accepted Answer

Common names are usually right. Because many names share the same pronunciation with different kanji, an unusual family or company name can come out with the wrong characters or romanization. Check names against a business card or email before quoting them.

Question 3

What about recordings with subject-less sentences?

Accepted Answer

Japanese often leaves out who is doing what. The translation works on several lines at once to infer the subject from context, which usually reads well, but in ambiguous passages English may say "I" or "we" where the speaker meant someone else.

Question 4

Can I make English subtitles for a Japanese video?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Download the translation as .srt or .vtt; each English cue uses the timing of the Japanese line it came from, ready for YouTube, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve or VLC.

Question 5

Is this audio translator really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can translate up to 5 files per day (200MB each) free, with no account and no watermark. For unlimited recording and transcription, the Wave app has a free plan and paid plans from $80 a year or $15 a month.

Question 6

What happens to my file?

Accepted Answer

Your file is uploaded to temporary storage, transcribed and translated. We may then keep a private copy of the audio and the original transcript to improve Wave's speech recognition. They are never published. Please don't upload recordings you aren't comfortable sharing with us.

Translate Japanese Audio to English

How to translate Japanese audio to English

Common questions