Polish recordings people bring
Polish is spoken by large communities outside Poland, especially in the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and the Chicago area. A lot of the recordings that need transcribing come from that life between two countries: a call with a Polish accountant, a voice message from a relative, an interview for a thesis on migration, a sermon from a parish that holds Polish-language services, or a podcast episode that someone wants as text.
Polish is one of the languages the speech model handles well. Clear recordings of one speaker, or a calm conversation between two, usually need only small corrections. Strong regional speech such as Silesian or Podhale highland dialect is harder, because it differs from standard Polish in vocabulary as well as sound. Expect more edits there, and keep the audio open while you review.
If you do not speak Polish yourself, for example as an English-speaking researcher or a lawyer's assistant handling a client file, a transcript is still useful. It gives you text you can search, translate and quote by timestamp, and a Polish-speaking colleague can check only the passages that matter instead of listening to the whole recording.
Diacritics and spelling in the transcript
The transcript is written in standard Polish with the full set of letters: ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź and ż. You do not need to fix missing ogonki the way you would after typing on an English keyboard. What deserves a second look is the same as in any careful Polish text.
- Pairs that sound alike, such as rz and ż, or ó and u, are usually right in common words. Rare words and surnames are where mistakes show up.
- Names and places: check surnames, small town names and company names against your notes.
- Numbers and dates may appear as digits or words. Polish case endings on numbers (for example in dates) are a common place to tidy up.
- Long consonant clusters, as in źdźbło or chrząszcz, are handled, but fast speech can blur short unstressed words.
Polish with English words mixed in
Poles who work in English-speaking offices often bring English words into Polish sentences and give them Polish endings: "wyślę ci maila", "mamy calla o trzeciej", "zrobiłem update". The model usually writes these the way they are commonly spelled in Polish text, which is often a mix of English roots and Polish endings. If you need a consistent house style for these words, settle it during review.
A recording that switches to whole English sentences for long stretches is harder than one that stays in Polish. Choose the language that is spoken most. This page preselects Polish, which helps when a call opens with an English greeting or when a short voice note gives auto-detect too little to go on. You can still change the language in the upload box.
Using the Polish transcript
TXT, DOCX (Word), SRT, VTT and CSV keep every Polish character. The direct PDF export covers Western European characters only, so letters like ł and ę do not fit it. For a Polish transcript the PDF option opens a print-ready page, and you save it as a PDF from your browser.
Word is the usual choice for interview transcripts and for documents you will send to someone. SRT or VTT turn a Polish video into a subtitle file in Polish. CSV gives you one line per row with timestamps, which suits research coding.
To read a Polish recording in English, use the Google Translate link on the transcript. To get a short summary in English, use the AI prompt export and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude. On paid plans or with a Minute Pack the transcript can show who said what, and you can rename the speakers.