What people record in Finland
Students at Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Jyväskylä, Oulu and the universities of applied sciences record interviews for their pro gradu or thesis project. A typical file is a one-hour interview recorded on a phone or a Teams call, and the transcript then goes into analysis software or a spreadsheet. Researchers also run focus groups with teachers, nurses or young people.
Other common uploads are kunnanvaltuusto and board meetings, workplace meetings, local podcasts, church and association events, and family recordings of grandparents talking about evacuation from Karelia, the war years or moving to Sweden for work. Old cassettes and minidiscs copied to MP3 are common, and their hiss and low volume make the draft weaker.
Many Finnish research interviews now take place on Teams with both people at home. Ask the participant to use a headset and record from the meeting app, which gives cleaner audio than a laptop microphone in a large, echoing room. Swedish-speaking municipalities and associations record their meetings too, and those files should be set to Swedish.
Finnish, Swedish, Sami and Russian
Finland is officially bilingual, and recordings made here are often in a language other than Finnish. Each file is transcribed in one language, so choose the one most of the recording is spoken in:
- Swedish: spoken on the coast of Ostrobothnia, in the Turku archipelago, in parts of Helsinki and across Åland. Choose Swedish for those recordings.
- Sami languages: Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami are not in the language list. Parts spoken in Finnish can be transcribed with Finnish selected.
- Russian: the largest immigrant language in Finland. Choose Russian for family and research interviews held in Russian.
- Estonian: many Estonians live and work in Finland. Estonian is in the list, with less training data than Finnish, so review the draft fully.
- Somali, Arabic and English: Somali and Arabic are common in research interviews, and English is used in universities and international companies.
Helsinki slang, regional speech and bilingual speakers
Speech varies between Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu and Lapland, and the transcript tends towards standard written Finnish. Old Helsinki slang (stadin slangi) borrows many Swedish words, such as skidi or mutsi, which may be misheard or written in more than one way. Speakers from Lapland and Kainuu use local words that the model may replace with a similar standard word, so check sentences that read oddly.
Bilingual speakers often switch between Finnish and Swedish mid-sentence. Short Swedish words inside Finnish usually come through, but longer switches come out weaker in a file set to Finnish. If a meeting alternates between the two languages in clear blocks, cut the file and upload each part with its own language.
A note on privacy
Your files are never used to train AI models. RocketScribe does not make claims about where files are stored or about formal certifications, so if a recording contains personal data, check your university's or employer's rules before uploading. Finnish universities usually expect a data management plan and consent from interview participants.
From upload to finished transcript
Upload the file as it is: an M4A voice memo, an MP3, a WhatsApp voice note or an MP4 from a Teams meeting. Audio is extracted from video automatically, and you can also record in the browser with your microphone.
The transcript appears in paragraphs with timestamps, and the player highlights the line being spoken. Click a line to hear it again and correct it in place. Export DOCX for your gradu appendix, CSV for coding, or SRT and VTT for subtitles. Timestamps and speaker names can be switched on or off, and speaker labels are available on paid plans or with a Minute Pack.
For supervisors or colleagues who do not read Finnish, the Google Translate link shows the transcript in English, and the AI prompt export copies it with a ready-made prompt for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.