Long Somali audio to text, in Somali with English below
Upload a long Somali recording, from a family voice message to a two-hour religious talk, and get it written in the standard Somali Latin alphabet with a timestamp on each paragraph. English sits under every paragraph for readers who do not speak Somali. A file of up to 15 minutes is free in full; otherwise the first part is free and the rest unlocks for $5, up to 6 hours.
- Written in the official Somali Latin alphabet: c, x, dh and doubled vowels such as aa
- Northern and Benadiri speech written as spoken
- Arabic verses and phrases in religious talks written in Arabic script
- English translation under every paragraph, already selected
- Up to 6 hours and 2 GB per job for $5
Real output from a demo recording. Click a timestamp to see where it sits in the audio.
Somali spelling, as Somalis write it
Somali has used a Latin alphabet since 1972, and it uses some letters in ways English readers do not expect. The letter c stands for the deep throat sound of Arabic ayn, x for a rough h made in the throat, and dh for a sound English does not have. Long vowels are written double, so "waa" and "wa" are different. The transcript follows these rules, which means a Somali reader can read it normally and search it for names and words.
Family voice recordings and long messages
Somali families spread across Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, the US, the UK, Canada, Sweden and Norway keep in touch with long voice messages and recorded calls. When a grandparent tells a family history, gives advice or explains an inheritance, the children abroad sometimes understand only part of it. The transcript keeps the Somali word for word and the English beneath helps them follow.
Many short voice messages from one conversation can go into one job. Name them so they sort in the right order, because files are put in name order.
Religious talks, lectures and poetry
A muxaadaro or dars can run for hours and moves between Somali explanation and Arabic quotations from the Quran and hadith. The Somali is written in Latin letters and the Arabic in Arabic script, each where it was said. Somali poetry is dense and full of old words; expect more mistakes there than in conversation, and check lines you plan to quote.
Limits to know first
- Somali has much less training audio than English, so check the free first part against the recording
- Af-Maay, spoken in parts of southern Somalia, is quite different from standard Somali and is not in the list
- Clan, family and place names are written as heard; confirm them
- Speaker labels can change number on long files: rename them with Find and replace
How the tool works, what it costs and how your files are handled is on the Long Audio & Video to Text page; prices for every tool are on the pricing page.
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Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT transcribe a long Somali voice recording?
Free chat plans often cannot take audio at all, and paid ones limit file length and shorten long transcripts. For a recording of an hour or more, this tool writes out every part in Somali and joins them with timestamps.
How much is it?
Recordings of up to 15 minutes are free, downloads included. A longer one is $5 for the whole file, up to 6 hours, paid once.
Can I get only Somali without English?
Yes. Set "Also translate" to none before uploading.
Can I upload a WhatsApp voice note?
Yes, if you save it as a file first: OPUS, OGG, M4A and AAC are all accepted, and several notes can go in one job.
Who can see the recording?
Only you. It is sent to an AI model provider to be transcribed and is not used for training. Jobs started without an account are deleted after 7 days.