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Style guide

Rules that keep subtitles easy to read. The numbers follow the practice of a large streaming service; the rest is adapted for Georgian.

In short

  • At most 2 lines, and at most 42 characters a line.1,2
  • Each subtitle stays on screen for at least ⅚ of a second and at most 7 seconds.1
  • Reading speed: at most 17 characters a second in Georgian, 20 in English.3,2
  • Save files as SRT, in UTF-8.

Last checked: 17 October 2026

Length and timing

RuleGeorgianEnglish
Characters per line4242
Lines per subtitle22
Shortest time on screen⅚ s⅚ s
Longest time on screen7 s7 s
Reading speed, at most17 characters a second20 characters a second

The limits come from Netflix's subtitle guidelines.1,2 Netflix has no guide for Georgian, so the project uses the limit Netflix sets for Greek, another language with its own alphabet: 17 characters a second.3

  • Keep a subtitle on one line when it fits.1
  • When you need two lines, break after punctuation, or before a conjunction or a preposition. Do not separate an adjective from its noun, or a first name from a surname.1
  • A subtitle appears when the speaker starts and leaves when they stop. Leave a short gap between two subtitles so the change is visible.

Georgian subtitles

For foreign films translated into Georgian.

  • Natural Georgian. Translate the meaning, not the words. A subtitle that sounds like a translation slows the viewer down.
  • Quotation marks: „ and “ (low opening, high closing), and « » for quotes inside quotes.4
  • Numbers: a decimal comma and a non-breaking space between thousands: 2,5 and 10 000.4
  • No Mtavruli capitals (ᲛᲗᲐᲕᲠᲣᲚᲘ) for emphasis. These letters have been in Unicode only since 2018,5 and not every player has a font for them. Use italics instead.
  • Two speakers in one subtitle: one line each, both starting with a dash and a space:
12
00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:06,900
– სად მიდიხარ?
– სახლში.
  • შენ or თქვენ: follow the relationship on screen. შენ between friends and family, თქვენ for strangers, elders and officials.
  • Foreign names: write them as they sound, and add -ი in the nominative to names that end in a consonant: ჯონი, მაიკლი.
  • Songs: translate the words only when they matter to the story, and set them in italics.
  • Punctuation: one character for the ellipsis (…), no double spaces.

English subtitles for Georgian films

  • Names: romanize them with Georgia's national system, but leave out the apostrophes it uses to mark ejective consonants.6 Without them, names read the way people know them: წერეთელი becomes Tsereteli, კასპი becomes Kaspi.
  • Forms of address: ბატონო and ქალბატონო become “sir” and “madam”, or just the person's name, whichever sounds natural.
  • Culture: translate when English has a plain word (სუფრა: feast; თამადა: toastmaster). Keep the names of food and drink: khachapuri, khinkali, chacha.
  • Quotation marks: “ and ”, with ‘ ’ inside quotes.7 Decimal point, comma between thousands.
  • Spelling: British or American, but the same throughout a file.

Names from Georgian to Latin

Type a Georgian name to get its spelling in the national romanization system.6

Latin: Nino Tsereteli

The full alphabet, with the official spelling of each letter, is on the learning page.

Files

The project works in SRT, the most widely supported subtitle format. Each subtitle is a number, its start and end time, the text, and a blank line:

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500
გამარჯობა!

2
00:00:03,700 --> 00:00:06,200
როგორ ხარ?
  • Encoding: UTF-8. Text typed in old Georgian fonts such as AcadNusx looks like Latin letters on any computer without that font.8 The checker converts it.
  • WebVTT files are also accepted. It is the web's own subtitle format.9
  • Italics with <i> and </i>. No other formatting, colours or positions.
  • File names: film-title.year.language.srt, for example tears-of-steel.2012.ka.srt.

Where this information comes from

  1. Netflix. "Timed Text Style Guide: General Requirements." Netflix Partner Help Center.
  2. Netflix. "English (USA) Timed Text Style Guide." Netflix Partner Help Center.
  3. Netflix. "Greek Timed Text Style Guide." Netflix Partner Help Center.
  4. Unicode CLDR. "Georgian (ka) locale data": quotation marks and number symbols.
  5. Unicode Consortium. "Unicode 11.0.0" (2018): adds 46 Mtavruli Georgian capital letters.
  6. UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names. "Romanization of Georgian: Georgia 2011 national system; BGN/PCGN 2009 Agreement" (PDF, checked February 2022). The system was devised in 2002 and approved by Presidential Decree 109 of 2011.
  7. Unicode CLDR. "English (en) locale data": quotation marks and number symbols.
  8. ProZ.com. "Georgian Fonts": text in non-Unicode fonts such as LitNusx and AcadNusx shows as Latin characters without those fonts.
  9. W3C. "WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks Format."