Transcribe French audio to text
Upload a French recording and get an editable transcript with timestamps and speaker labels, ready to export as text or subtitles.
Spoken language
français
What French looks like on the page
La réunion commence à neuf heures. EN The meeting starts at nine o'clock. An example sentence for illustration, not transcript output.
Notes on French
- Script
- Latin alphabet with é, è, ê, à, ç, ù, î and the ligature œ
- Varieties
- Metropolitan, Quebec, Belgian, Swiss and West and North African French
- Typography
- French places a space before ':', ';', '?' and '!', and uses « » for quotations
French is spoken on several continents, and recordings reflect it. A Parisian radio interview, a Montreal podcast, a Brussels press briefing and a conversation recorded in Dakar or Abidjan share a written standard but sound very different. Accuracy varies with audio quality, accents and background noise, so give regional recordings an extra listen on a first project.
The language has several traps that are about writing rather than hearing. Many words sound identical but are spelled differently, such as 'ils parlent' and 'il parle', and agreement endings on verbs and adjectives are silent. A transcript that gets the sound right can still choose the wrong spelling. This is why speaker turns and timestamps are valuable: you can check a doubtful agreement against the audio and fix it in place.
Typography also differs from English. French uses guillemets for quotation marks and traditionally places a space before a colon, semicolon, question mark and exclamation mark. If your publication follows a specific style, standardise it with find and replace before you export. Proper names, acronyms and borrowings from English are the other common corrections. Originals are deleted within 24 hours and are never used for training.
Questions
Does it handle Quebec French?
Quebec French is French, and the same page applies. Its pronunciation and vocabulary differ from metropolitan French, so review those passages with care.
Will spaces before colons and question marks be correct?
French typography expects them, but the transcript may not apply that style consistently. Adjust before you publish.
How are liaisons and elisions written?
The transcript writes standard spelling rather than the sounds, so you will see 'l'homme', not what the ear hears. Names and acronyms are the usual corrections.
Can I export French subtitles?
Yes. Export SRT or VTT and check line breaks, because French lines tend to run longer than English ones.
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