A speaking rate calculator turns a word count and a duration in minutes into words per minute. Divide the words by the minutes and round to a whole number. The form starts with 1500 words in 10 minutes, which gives 150 words per minute.
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 form has two fields, Words and Minutes, and the result updates as you type.
- If Minutes is zero or empty, the result shows a dash instead of a number, because a rate cannot be divided by zero.
- The result is rounded to a whole number, so 1499 words in 10 minutes also shows 150.
- The table lists five fixed examples, from 90 words per minute for 900 words in 10 minutes to 150 for 9000 words in 60 minutes.
Calculator
| Words | Minutes | Words per minute |
|---|---|---|
| 900 | 10 | 90 |
| 1500 | 10 | 150 |
| 1800 | 12 | 150 |
| 3000 | 20 | 150 |
| 9000 | 60 | 150 |
| 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 |
More
See the full list of languages, the tools and the glossary.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate words per minute for a speech?
Count the words in the text, note the time it took to say them, and divide the first by the second. Enter both in the form and read the result. For a speech of 1800 words that lasted 12 minutes the answer is 150.
Where do I get the word count?
Take it from the transcript, since any word processor shows a count. Use the length of the recording for the minutes.
Why does the result show a dash?
The Minutes field is empty or zero. Enter a duration greater than zero and the rate appears.
Does the calculator measure my voice?
No. It only divides two numbers you type. It does not listen to audio and does not judge whether a pace is good or bad.
What can I do with the result?
Use it as the rate in the transcript length estimator, which multiplies minutes by a rate to predict words and pages. You can also compare it with the rate of another speaker, or of the same speaker on a different day, to see how the pace varies.
Sources
Each source was opened by hand on the date shown. Pages change, so open the source if a detail matters to you.
- Transcription (linguistics) (Wikipedia), Wikipedia · checked
- Speech recognition (Wikipedia), Wikipedia · 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