Potok converts German audio to text when you send the file to its Telegram bot. Published tests of others on large-v3, not our measurements, show a word error rate of 4.3, with results from 4.30 to 5.8. Files up to 2 GB are accepted.
Transcribe a recording
Send your voice message, audio or video to @potok_now_bot on Telegram and the text comes back in the chat.
Open @potok_now_bot in Telegram
Files up to 2 GB · export to TXT, MD, DOCX, PDF, SRT and VTT · speaker labels and timestamps · about 30 languages
Key facts
- The range of results shows that different tests disagree by more than one point, so treat the headline as a guide.
- German compounds can come out as one word or split into two, which a reader may take for a typo.
- Nouns carry capital letters, so check them in the output.
- Swiss and Austrian speech can differ from standard German in sound and vocabulary.
What a transcript looks like
[00:00] Speaker 1: Lassen Sie uns die Besprechung beginnen. Zuerst gehen wir die Ergebnisse der letzten Woche durch, danach planen wir die nächsten Schritte.Meaning in English: Let's start the meeting. First, we'll review last week's results, then plan the next steps.
Written by us to show the script and the layout of a transcript. It is not the output of the recognition engine.
Published quality
| Language | Verdict | Published result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| German (Deutsch) | Recommended | word error rate 4.3% (large-v3, FLEURS) Canary-1B-v2 paper, Whale paper, TheWhisper benchmark | Published tests show a low error rate for this language. Published large-v3 results range from 4.30 to 5.8. |
These numbers come from published tests by other people, not from tests by Potok. Your own audio, with its noise, accents and microphone, will differ.
How to do it
- Open the bot. Open @potok_now_bot in Telegram.
- Send the file. Audio, video, a voice note or a YouTube link, up to 2 GB. Use the Upload button for big files.
- Check compounds. A long compound may be split into two words in the text. Join them where the standard spelling needs one word.
- Check capital letters. Nouns are capitalised in German; verify names and technical terms in particular.
- Check separable verbs. German verbs split in a sentence, so the prefix can land far from the verb. Read these sentences twice.
- Export. Choose TXT, MD, DOCX, PDF, SRT or VTT for the next step.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Where it works | Telegram bot @potok_now_bot; large files go through the bot's mini app |
| File size | Up to 2 GB |
| Export | TXT, MD, DOCX, PDF, SRT, VTT |
| Speakers and time | Speaker labels and timestamps can be switched on |
| Languages | About 30 languages with good published results; a few more with warnings |
| Translation | The transcript is not translated into another language |
| Dictation | A separate Potok desktop app lets you dictate text into any program; it recognises Russian speech |
Common mistakes
| Mistake | What happens | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Leaving split compounds | They look like typos and slow down reading. | Join them during the edit. |
| Assuming Swiss or Austrian speech matches the test | Regional speech differs from the standard form. | Test a short sample first. |
| Quoting 4.3 as our result | It comes from tests of others. | Say where the number is from. |
| Sending a talk with many English terms | Mixed speech is harder to write down. | Proofread those terms. |
More
See the full list of languages, the tools and the glossary.
Frequently asked questions
How good is German?
The published word error rate is 4.3 on large-v3, among the best on our list, from tests of others.
Why the range 4.30 to 5.8?
Different published tests of the model report different values, so we show the lowest as the headline and the range as context.
Can I send a video?
Yes, a video is read like audio, within the 2 GB file limit of the bot.
Is the German translated?
No. The German text stays German, which is the language of the recording.
Can I get timestamps?
Yes, switch them on before sending, and export SRT or VTT.
Sources
Each source was opened by hand on the date shown. Pages change, so open the source if a detail matters to you.
- Word error rate (Wikipedia), Wikipedia · checked
- FLEURS speech dataset (Google, Hugging Face), Hugging Face · checked
- Canary-1B-v2 paper, Table 11 (Whisper large-v3 on FLEURS) · checked
- Whale paper, Table 5 (Whisper large-v3 on FLEURS) · checked
- TheWhisper benchmark (turbo, average over FLEURS, MLS, Common Voice) · checked
Try it on your own recording
Send your voice message, audio or video to @potok_now_bot on Telegram and the text comes back in the chat.
Open @potok_now_bot in Telegram