How to Add Hindi and Marathi Captions to Shorts and Reels (Automatically)

A large share of short-video viewers in India watch in Hindi, Marathi and other regional languages — and many of them scroll with the sound off. Captions are what make a viewer stop. Yet most caption tools were built for English first: they mis-hear Indian names, split Devanagari words badly or force everything into Roman script.

This guide explains how to get accurate captions in your own language, and how to reach a wider audience by translating them.

Why captions matter so much on Shorts and Reels

• Silent viewing. In feeds, videos often start muted. Captions carry the message until the viewer turns the sound on.
• Retention. Word-by-word animated captions keep the eyes moving, which helps people watch to the end.
• Accessibility. Viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing can follow your content.
• Reach across languages. A Marathi video with Hindi or English captions can find viewers in other states.

Step 1: Set the spoken language

When you add a video to BeClipper, the spoken language is detected automatically. If your video mixes languages — for example Hindi with English words — automatic detection usually works well. If a video opens in one language and then switches, choose the language manually in the project's Video language setting and transcribe again.

Step 2: Check the transcript

BeClipper transcribes every word with timings, in the script of the language spoken: Devanagari for Hindi and Marathi. Open a clip in the editor and read the captions once. Fix names, places and brand terms — speech recognition is very good but not perfect, especially with proper nouns.

Step 3: Choose a caption style that suits your language

Devanagari text looks best with bold, clear styles and slightly fewer words per line. Good choices are:

• Bold — each word lights up as it is spoken.
• Pop — words pop in one by one, very readable on phones.
• Podcast — text in a box, calm and clean for interviews.

Turn on Emphasize key words to colour numbers, names and the strongest word of each line.

Step 4: Translate captions (optional)

Choose a Caption language in the editor to translate the captions when you export. The translation keeps each line's timing, so the text still matches the speaker. You can export the same clip twice — once with Marathi captions for your core audience and once with Hindi or English captions for a wider one.

BeClipper can translate captions into 22 languages, including Hindi, Marathi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu.

Tips for Indian-language captions

• Keep lines short: two lines of four to six words each.
• Place captions in the middle if the bottom of the frame is busy with platform buttons.
• Avoid mixing scripts in one line unless the speaker really does — it can be hard to read.
• Always proofread numbers and names after translation.

Start captioning

Add a video, pick your language and export your first captioned clip. The free plan includes every caption style and language. For more, see questions about languages and captions.