 Keep forms of the verb “to be” with the predicate (Jack/is a girl not Jack is/a girl)

l) and
with the subject pronoun (we are/here not we/are here)
 Keep complex grammatical forms together (Jack has been working/in Spain not Jack
has/been working in Spain)
 Don't break lines or end subtitles after contracted forms of verbs (Remember that
book?/It's here not Remember that book? It's/here)
 Keep the "to" infinitive together (It’s not difficult/to eat slowly not It’s not difficult to/eat
slowly)
 Keep articles and nouns together (Paris is/a city in France not Paris is a/city in
France)
 Keep there + to be (there is, there was, there has been... etc.) together (I heard/there
is fruit not I heard there/is fruit)
 Keep relative pronouns (that, which, whose etc.) together with the clause they
introduce (I didn't know/that the dog was blue not I didn't know that/the dog was blue)
 Don't separate a pronoun used as the subject of a clause from the verb/component
(e.g. I call her up;/she responds not I call her up; she/responds)
 If at all possible, don't break the line or subtitle after determiners:
adjectives, numerals, demonstratives (like this or those), possessives (like his or the
dog's) or quantifiers (like some, any, every, a lot of, etc.)
 Prepositions (in, on, under, etc.) should not be followed by a line break if the break
would separate them from the noun they refer to. Note: A preposition usually
precedes a noun (or a “noun phrase,” like the big dog), and cannot be followed by a
line break. However, in English, a preposition that is part of a phrasal verb (put
up, figure out, take in, etc.) may sometimes not be followed by a noun (I figured
it out yesterday). Prepositions that are part of phrasal verbs can often be followed by
a line break.

Examples of correct line breaking

The examples below show places in a sentence where lines can be broken. The ideal places to
break are marked by the green slashes, while the orange slashes indicate places where it would
be OK to break the line if breaking at the green slashes were not possible. Note that you don't
normally break lines that do not exceed 42 characters; the examples below are simply used to
show various grammatical contexts where a sentence can be broken, not to suggest that you
should break subtitles into very short lines.

 "This is a very long,/verbose piece/of prose/that no one knows/and no one/will

remember."
Notes: Breaking lines at clause boundaries is usually a good strategy, and commas and
conjunctions (like "and") often indicate clause boundaries. The first orange slash breaks up a
clause but keeps together a noun+verb combination; "of" is a preposition and the line break
should not follow it. The second orange line break separates a subject from the predicate. This is
not ideal, but it's better than breaking the line after "will," since if possible, auxiliary verbs should
not be separated from other verbs in grammatical constructions.

 "Mary wants/to go/to the store,/but as far as I know,/all the stores/are closed/on
Translation Day."
Notes: The green slashes are again placed at clause boundaries. The first orange slash is there
to make sure that the word "to" is not separated from the infinitive, and the second is placed so
as not to separate "to" from the noun phrase that the preposition refers to ("the store").
Remember that the orange slashes are various imperfect line-breaking options, and would never
be used at the same time to create short lines; the point is, if you have to, you can break the
clause after "wants" or after "to go." The third orange slash separates a subject from the
predicate, but avoids separating the auxiliary verb ("are") from the participle ("closed"). In other
words, line breaks should be placed in ways that don't split up complex grammatical
constructions. The last orange slash splits off an adverbial, an expression that tells us something
about a sentence or a verb, and thus, can often be put into the next line, as something "extra"
that describes the sentence.

 "I woke up,/jet-lagged,/at 4 in the morning,/in my new bed,/and right away I

called/Annie Jayaraman,/to tell her/about my interview."
Notes: The example below contains some commas that are arguably redundant, but sometimes,
you can "cheat" a little and add commas in places where part of the sentence can be considered
a parenthesis, meaning a word or phrase that is interjected into a sentence to add some context
or description, but could be left out without changing the "core" meaning of the sentence. For
example, the word "jet-lagged" can be seen as an additional comment about the way the speaker
awoke. You can easily break lines at the boundaries of such parentheses or interjections (usually
set apart by commas), which is where the green slashes are placed. The orange slash after
"called" indicates a line break that splits a verb from its complement or object, which should be
used only if other breaks are not available. The second orange slash also separates a verb from
its complement, but keeps intact the whole phrase that begins with the preposition "about."