The Top European Languages For Corporate Video Subtitles

Posted by Anna on December 2nd, 2020

Corporate videos are a useful tool to help provide company wide training, to promote new products, and to release new information about the company. To further push the usefulness of the content, many corporations choose to include subtitles on video content instead of or as an alternative to a voice over, according to the voice-over agency Matinée Multilingual. The subtitles can be one language, or available in multiple languages depending on how accessible you want the content to be. It may also be logical to make it multi-language if your company is based in various locations across Europe.

In many instances, it’s not a completely straight-forward decision when it comes to choosing a language to include in your corporate video subtitles. You could include every language in Europe, but it’s not practical to do so if you don’t need to. To help you consider which language to use in your corporate video subtitles, let's take a look at the top European languages used in Europe, of the 24 official, and over 200 unofficial languages used across the continent:

1. Russian

A surprise to many, Russian is the most spoken language in Europe. For that reason, it is a good candidate for subtitles for your video. To add even more weight to that reasoning, it is important to know there is no obligation for Russians to learn English, in Russia at least. So, this minimises the chance of Russian employees and clients understanding pure English content.

1. German

German is the second most spoken language in Europe and is spoken as the mother language of five countries on the continent. If you’re considering sending your video further afield, you may also be interested to know that 7.5 million people in 42 countries worldwide also speak the language.

1. French

French is the third most commonly spoken language in Europe, and is spoken by 300 million people worlwide. It is important to note, when it comes to subtitles, that there are several dialects of French and the type you use very much depends on where your video will be shown. A professional subtitle service can ensure your subtitles are specific to your target audience.

1. English

Across many countries in Europe, English is spoken to some degree by over 50% of residents. For that reason, many corporations choose to use English as the spoken audio on their content, with subtitles representing other languages.

1. Turkish

Turkish is spoken by 90% of the population of Turkey, and by over 75 million people worldwide. It may come as a surprise to many that there are lots of Turkish speakers in Germany.

1. Italian

Italian is the main language of Italy, and is a partial official language of Switzerland. Many people speak Italian across the world too, and if you are thinking of putting your content out across the pond, you might be interested to know that around 710,000 Americans use Italian as their first language and over 15 million consider themselves Italian Americans.

1. Spanish

Spanish is spoken in various forms across Europe and the world. If you want to use Spanish as a subtitle language in your video it is important to use a professional subtitle service. Spanish is spoken in various different regional languages across the country, and so, it is important to know you are using the correct type of Spanish for your subtitles in order for your content to be effective.

1. Ukranian

Around 40 million people speak Ukranian, with the majority being in the Ukraine, and the rest being in various other parts of Europe.

1. Polish

Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also commonly spoken in England, and various other countries across Europe.

1. Dutch

Dutch is spoken by around 23 million people as their native language worldwide. It is also spoken by 5 million people in the EU as their second language, and is taught in Germany, America and France.

The languages above are some of the most commonly spoken languages in Europe. Combine this information with the knowledge of your target audience and your employee language percentages. Most importantly, consider the advice of your professional subtitling company too.

All of that information combined should lead you to using the best languages for your corporate video subtitles, for the best possible accessibility for your viewers.