What people record in Norway
Students at the universities in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Tromsø and Stavanger interview informants for their masteroppgave and need the interviews written out before they can analyse them. Nurses, teachers and social workers in continuing education do the same for project assignments. These are usually one-to-one interviews recorded on a phone, which gives a good draft when the phone sits close to both people.
Other common recordings are kommunestyre and committee meetings, workplace meetings from Teams, local podcasts, church and sports club events, and family recordings of grandparents talking about fishing, farming or the war years. Older family tapes are often copied from cassettes, and hiss and low volume on those make the draft weaker.
Sami, Kven and other languages in Norway
Norwegian is the main language, but many recordings made in Norway are in something else. Each file is transcribed in one language, so pick the one most of the recording is spoken in:
- Sami languages: Northern Sami and the other Sami languages are not in the language list. If speakers switch to Norwegian, those parts can be transcribed as Norwegian.
- Kven: not in the list. Finnish is the closest option, with a draft that needs heavy editing.
- Polish and Lithuanian: large communities of workers in construction, fishing and industry. Both are in the list. Lithuanian has less training data, so review it fully.
- Swedish: many Swedes work in Norway, and a Swede in a Norwegian meeting usually keeps speaking Swedish. Choose the language of the main speaker.
- Somali, Arabic and other languages common in Norwegian cities are also in the list.
- English: the oil and gas industry in Stavanger and Bergen, research groups and international companies often meet in English.
Bokmål, Nynorsk and the language list
The language list has two Norwegian entries: Norwegian and Norwegian Nynorsk. Norwegian, which this page preselects, gives the most reliable result and normally writes Bokmål. The speech model has very little Nynorsk training data, so if you need Nynorsk text, test the Nynorsk option on a short clip and compare it with a Norwegian run before you transcribe a long file. Many Nynorsk users find it faster to transcribe as Norwegian and adjust the word forms while editing.
Norwegian speakers in mixed workplaces often blend in English terms, and Swedish and Danish colleagues are understood by everyone in the room. The transcript writes everything in one language, so a Swedish sentence in a Norwegian file may come out as Norwegian-looking text that does not match what was said. Check those parts against the audio.
Consent and personal data
Your files are never used to train AI models. RocketScribe does not make claims about where files are stored or about formal certifications. Norwegian universities usually ask students to register research projects that process personal data and to get consent from participants, so check your institution's rules before uploading interviews.
Editing and exporting
Upload the file as it is: an M4A voice memo, an MP3 from a dictaphone, a WhatsApp voice note or an MP4 from a 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 current line. Click a line to hear it again and correct it. Export DOCX for the appendix of your thesis, CSV to code the interviews, 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.
If a supervisor or partner does not read Norwegian, the Google Translate link shows the text in English, and the AI prompt export copies the transcript with a ready-made prompt for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.