Picking the right language for an Israeli recording
Israel is a multilingual country, and many recordings switch languages or are held entirely in something other than Hebrew. Each file is transcribed in the one language you choose, so set it to the language most of the file is spoken in:
- Hebrew: most meetings, lectures, podcasts and interviews. This page preselects it.
- Arabic: Arab citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem speak Palestinian Arabic. The transcript is written in Arabic script, and dialect words may be spelled closer to standard Arabic or misheard, so review those parts carefully.
- Russian: the large Russian-speaking community, many of whom arrived from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, often holds family conversations and community events in Russian.
- English: tech companies, international teams and some university courses run in English.
- Amharic: Ethiopian Israelis may speak Amharic at home. It is in the language list but has much less training data, so treat the result as a draft.
- French and Spanish: common among immigrants from France and Latin America. Both are in the list.
Mixed speech in Israeli homes and offices
Many Israelis switch languages inside one conversation. A grandmother speaks Russian, her grandson answers in Hebrew. A startup meeting runs in Hebrew with English product terms, then a colleague from abroad joins and everyone moves to English. The model writes one language per file, so long switches into a second language come out weaker.
When the languages come in clear blocks, cut the file and upload each part with its own language. When the switching is constant, choose the language you most need to quote, and use the timestamps to find the other parts and type them yourself. Arabic speakers in Israel also use many Hebrew words, such as names of offices and everyday terms. Those may appear in Arabic script, in Hebrew script or as a misheard word.
Accents and speakers across Israel
General Israeli Hebrew, the pronunciation of most people born in Israel, gives the cleanest result. Some speakers of Mizrahi background pronounce ח and ע in the throat, as in Arabic. The model usually handles this, but it can affect how unfamiliar names are spelled. Immigrants who learned Hebrew as adults speak with Russian, French, English or Amharic accents, and those recordings need more review, especially for names and numbers.
In Haredi communities, Yiddish is often the everyday language, and Yiddish has its own entry in the language list. Ladino recordings of older Sephardi relatives are not supported directly, as Ladino is not in the list. Choosing Spanish gives a rough draft at most.
What people record in Israel
Students at the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Technion, Haifa and Ben-Gurion record lectures and interviews for seminar papers and theses. Companies record team meetings and calls with customers abroad, usually from Zoom or Teams, and the MP4 or M4A file can be uploaded as it is.
Families and archives record testimony from Holocaust survivors and from immigrants who came from Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Ethiopia or the former Soviet Union. These are long recordings of one older speaker, often in a mix of languages. Treat them as a timed draft and review every name and place. Local podcasts, community lectures and WhatsApp voice notes are also common uploads.
Editing and sharing the transcript
The transcript is split into paragraphs with timestamps, and the player highlights the current line. Click a line to listen again and fix it. Export DOCX, TXT, PDF, SRT, VTT or CSV, with timestamps and speaker names switched on or off. Speaker labels are available on paid plans or with a Minute Pack. Your files are never used to train AI models.
To read a Hebrew, Arabic or Russian transcript in English, use the Google Translate link on the transcript, or the AI prompt export to paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini with a ready-made prompt.