Finnish speech to text · 1 hour free
Transcribe Finnish audio to text, with speakers and timestamps.
Upload a Finnish interview as mp3, m4a, wav or mp4 and get a draft with speaker labels and a timestamp on every speaker turn, ready to correct and export to Word. Verify your email to start with 1 hour free.
1 hour free · No card needed
Anyone with a verified email can use Spirelight. New accounts can use 1 hour free; any earlier free usage counts toward that hour. Buy more hours when you need them.
Try an example
Interview about student life, in Finnish
Finnish · Two speakers · Fictional excerpt
Haastattelija 00:12
Mikä auttaa, kun tehtävä alkaa tuntua ylivoimaiselta?
Opiskelija 00:18
Tosi paljon auttaa, että voimme puhua siitä opintoryhmässämme. Silloin en ole ainoa, joka etsii ratkaisua.
Haastattelija 00:31
Voitko kertoa jostain tietystä kerrasta, kun siitä oli apua?
How to do it
How to transcribe a Finnish interview
1. Sign up and verify your email
Use an email address you can access and confirm it with the code we send you. No university address or payment card is needed to start with the one-time free audio hour.
2. Upload the recording and choose Finnish
Upload the interview as mp3, m4a, wav or mp4 (up to 1 GB). Recordings longer than your free time need enough bought or plan hours in your account. Pick Finnish, or let Spirelight detect it; picking it yourself is safer when a recording opens with English small talk.
3. Listen, correct and export to Word
Correct the draft in the built-in player, with extra care for word endings, names and long compounds. Rename the speakers across the whole document, for example to pseudonyms, then export to Word (.docx), plain text or SRT, or start coding in the same project.
Finnish speech
What to check in a Finnish transcript
Sound length carries meaning in Finnish. “Tuli” (fire), “tuuli” (wind) and “tulli” (customs) differ only in how long one sound is held, so a mumbled or clipped word can turn into a different real word that still looks fine on the page. Read the draft while you listen, not on its own.
Finnish also packs meaning into endings and compounds. A wrong case ending can change who did what to whom, and a long compound may come out split in two. Names inflect too, so a person or a place can appear in several forms in one interview.
- Check every quote you plan to use against the recording.
- Note names, places and abbreviations during the interview so you can check them later.
- Record close to the speakers in a quiet room, and ask people not to talk over each other.
Spoken Finnish
Spoken Finnish is not written Finnish
The gap between everyday speech and written Finnish is wide. This is Finland describes it: people say “mä” and “sä” where the written language has “minä” and “sinä”.
That leaves you a choice to make before you start correcting. If your analysis looks at how people express themselves, keep the spoken forms. If you only need the content, standard Finnish may be enough. Whichever you pick, do the same in every interview and state it in your methods section.
Conventions
Transcription conventions for Finnish data
The Finnish Social Science Data Archive notes that there are no established names or definitions for levels of transcription, and that consistency in detail and logic is what matters. Ask your supervisor or department whether they expect a particular convention.
Spirelight’s draft gives you the words, speaker labels and a timestamp on every speaker turn. Neither “Word for word” nor “Cleaned up” guarantees a complete verbatim record. If your method needs pauses, overlaps, hesitations or dialect forms, add them while you proofread, with the recording playing alongside. Our guide to verbatim transcription covers the levels of detail.
Writing in English
Finnish interviews, English thesis
If your thesis is in English but the interviews were held in Finnish, keep the Finnish transcript as your analysis material. Spirelight transcribes the language that was spoken and does not translate. One possible way to work:
- Analyse and code the Finnish transcript, so you work with what people actually said.
- Translate only the quotes you use, and say in your methods section that the translations are your own.
- Ask a native speaker to check key quotes, especially irony, understatement and idioms.
- Follow your supervisor on whether to show the original Finnish next to each quote.
Questions about transcribing Finnish audio
Can I transcribe Finnish audio to text for free?
Yes. Anyone who verifies an email can start with 1 hour free. Earlier free usage counts toward that hour. When it runs out, buy hours at €2 per audio hour or choose Spirelight Plus at €14 per month with 20 hours included. Purchased hours never expire. See pricing.
How accurate is Finnish speech to text?
It depends mostly on the recording. Clear audio with one person speaking at a time gives the best draft, while background noise, overlapping speech, strong dialect and specialist terms cause more errors. Word endings and compounds need a close look. Treat the transcript as a first draft, listen through it in the built-in player and check every quote you plan to use.
Can I get an English translation of my Finnish audio?
No. Spirelight transcribes Finnish speech into Finnish text and does not translate. If you write your thesis in English, translate the quotes you use yourself, say that the translations are yours and keep the Finnish transcript for your analysis.
Does Spirelight work with Finnish dialects?
You can choose Finnish for dialect recordings, but regional forms make the draft harder to check. Test a short sample first and allow extra time to listen through the full interview. Add dialect forms yourself if your analysis depends on them.
Where does my Finnish audio go when I upload it?
Transcription runs on AssemblyAI’s servers in the EU. Your files, transcripts and account are stored with Google Firebase in the US, and if you use AI summaries or chat, the text is processed by OpenAI in the US. Standard accounts do not include a data processing agreement (DPA). Before uploading identifiable interviews, ask your university’s data protection officer to assess the lawful basis and whether this service may be used. Participant consent alone is not approval to use an external tool.
Do I need an ethical review to interview people for my thesis in Finland?
It depends on the study. TENK’s guidance for the human sciences lists the cases that need an ethical review statement before you collect data, including departures from informed consent. Ask your supervisor whether it applies to your project.
Other languages
Transcribing another language?
- Danish audio to text
- German audio to text
- Swedish audio to text
- Norwegian audio to text
- Polish audio to text
Each of these pages covers what to expect from that language’s recordings. Interview transcription covers file formats, proofreading and English recordings.
Get started
Stop transcribing recordings by hand
Create an account, confirm your email and upload a recording. Correct the draft, then download it in Word, plain text or SRT.
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