How do I translate a recording into another language?

Translate the transcript, not the audio. Speech-to-text first, then text-to-text: transcribe the recording in its original language, check the transcript, then translate. Doing it the other way — asking one tool to listen in Spanish and write English — compounds two error rates and gives you nothing to check when the result reads oddly. AI Transcribe does both steps on the phone: transcription in 32 languages with automatic detection, then translation of the transcript into 46.

Why the order matters

A transcription error and a translation error behave differently. A transcription error is visible — you read the transcript and see that a word is wrong. A translation error built on top of a mis-heard word is invisible: the output is fluent, grammatical, and quietly says something that was never said. When the two steps are collapsed, you lose the checkpoint between them.

Keeping them separate gives you a place to intervene: fix the name the model misheard, then translate.

The steps

1. Transcribe in the original language. Automatic detection handles this without you selecting anything; if the recording switches languages mid-way, expect the dominant one to win.
2. Read the transcript first. Names, numbers, technical terms — these are where errors cluster and where a translation will amplify them.
3. Translate the transcript. The transcript keeps its speaker labels and timestamps, so a translated interview stays navigable.

What this is good for, and what it is not

Good: understanding a recording in a language you do not read; sharing an interview with a colleague who does not speak the original; producing a working draft for a translator to polish.

Not good enough on its own: anything published, legal, or medical. Machine translation of speech carries the errors of both steps, and for consequential text a human pass is not optional. Say plainly which draft is machine-produced when you pass it on.

Not the same thing as subtitles. A translated transcript is text. Burning translated subtitles onto a video is a separate video task.

The honest constraints

Both steps run in the cloud, so a connection is required. Accuracy depends far more on the recording than on the language pair — a clean recording in a less-common language beats a noisy recording in a common one. And a translated transcript inherits every gap in the original: what was inaudible stays missing, it just becomes missing in a second language.

Frequently asked questions

How many languages can it transcribe and translate? Transcription covers 32 languages with automatic detection; transcripts can be translated into 46.

Can I translate a WhatsApp voice message? Yes — import the audio, transcribe it, then translate the transcript. See transcribing WhatsApp voice messages.

Will the translation keep who said what? Speaker labels and timestamps stay with the transcript, so a translated interview is still navigable.

Is it good enough to publish? Treat it as a working draft. For anything published or consequential, have a human check it.