To check a free Finnish transcription tool, send a clip with long compound words and read how each one was written. In published tests of large-v3, Finnish scores a word error rate of 7.7, and Potok reports that as someone else's result.
Transcribe a recording
Send your voice message, audio or video to @potok_now_bot on Telegram and the text comes back in the chat.
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Files up to 2 GB · export to TXT, MD, DOCX, PDF, SRT and VTT · speaker labels and timestamps · about 30 languages
Key facts
- The 7.7 is a word error rate for large-v3 in a published test, not our measurement.
- Finnish builds long words with endings, so one wrong letter makes a whole word count as wrong.
- Word error rate therefore punishes small slips in Finnish more than in short-word languages.
- The transcript stays in Finnish and is not translated.
What a transcript looks like
[00:00] Speaker 1: Aloitetaan kokous. Ensin käymme läpi viime viikon tulokset ja sitten suunnittelemme seuraavat vaiheet.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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finnish (Suomi) | Recommended | word error rate 7.7% (large-v3, FLEURS) Canary-1B-v2 paper | Published tests show a low error rate for this language. |
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
- Gather long words. Use a clip where the speaker says place names, job titles and other long words with endings.
- Open the bot. Open @potok_now_bot in Telegram and send the clip as a voice message or an audio file.
- Read the long words letter by letter. Compare each against the speaker. A single wrong ending is an error.
- Check double letters. Finnish has long and short sounds, written with doubled letters. See whether they come through.
- Send the full file. Up to 2 GB is accepted, with the Upload button for large files. Export TXT or DOCX.
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Counting a near miss as a hit | One wrong ending still makes the word wrong. | Be strict when you mark errors. |
| Ignoring doubled letters | A missing double letter changes the word. | Scan for them in the output. |
| Comparing with a language of short words | Scores are not comparable across languages. | Compare tools on Finnish only. |
| Testing with a single sentence | It may avoid the hard words. | Use a full minute of natural speech. |
More
See the full list of languages, the tools and the glossary.
Frequently asked questions
How does Finnish score?
Published large-v3 results show a word error rate of 7.7, which is in the good range.
Why does word error rate bite harder in Finnish?
Long words carry many endings, so a tiny slip makes a whole word wrong.
Is a video file fine?
Yes, video, audio, voice messages and YouTube links all work within the 2 GB limit.
Can I export to Word?
Yes. DOCX is among the formats, alongside TXT, MD, PDF, SRT and VTT.
Will I get a translated version?
No. The transcript stays in the language of the recording.
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
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