Faroese results: a starting point
With around seventy thousand speakers, Faroese has very little training data in the speech model. Expect a rough draft with many corrections, even on good audio. It works best on slow, clear speech from one speaker close to the microphone. Group conversations, songs and windy outdoor recordings will often need rewriting.
For long interviews, correcting timed lines is still usually quicker than typing everything by ear.
Upload the recording as it is: MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, OPUS, FLAC, a voice message or a phone recording. You can also record from your microphone in the upload box. Nothing needs converting first.
Faroese spelling and the silent ð
Faroese spelling is etymological, so it often differs from pronunciation. The letter ð is usually silent, and g between vowels can be silent too, which means the model has to guess spellings it cannot hear. Expect mistakes in words like the ones ending in -ður or with ð between vowels.
- The letters á, í, ó, ú, ý, æ, ø and ð are supported in the transcript and in UTF-8 exports.
- Long compound words may be split in two or joined wrongly.
- Regional pronunciation, for example between Suðuroy and the northern islands, changes vowels and makes some words harder.
Danish and Icelandic nearby
Most Faroese speakers also speak Danish, and Danish words and phrases turn up in conversation and in older recordings. Short Danish words usually come through; whole Danish passages may be forced into Faroese spelling. If a recording is mostly Danish, choose Danish instead.
Icelandic is related and also in the language list, but the two are not interchangeable. Do not rely on auto-detect, which can pick Icelandic, Norwegian or Danish for a Faroese file. Keep Faroese selected.
The transcript opens next to a player that highlights the current line. Click a line to hear it again, correct the word in place, and your changes save automatically.
What people record in Faroese
Typical files are interviews with older islanders for family and local history, kvæði and other traditional song recordings, church services, school and language-course material, and local radio. Faroese people living in Denmark also bring voice messages and family calls. Researchers working on Faroese dialects use the CSV export to keep each line with its start time.
Export TXT, DOCX, PDF, CSV, SRT or VTT, with timestamps and speaker names switched on or off per export. Speaker labels are available on paid plans or with a Minute Pack.
For video files, see the Faroese video to text page.