Swedish speech to text · Free hours for students
Transcribe Swedish audio to text, with speakers and timestamps.
You can turn a Swedish interview into text here: upload the recording and get a draft with speaker labels and a timestamp on every speaker turn, then export it to Word. Students at universities in Sweden, Finland and 11 other European countries get 7 hours free every month.
7 free hours of audio a month · No card needed
Free hours are for students who confirm their university email, for example at Uppsala University, Lund University, Stockholm University or Åbo Akademi in Finland, or at another university in one of the 13 countries.
Try an example
Interview about student life, in Swedish
Swedish · Two speakers · Fictional excerpt
Intervjuare 00:12
Vad hjälper dig när en uppgift börjar kännas övermäktig?
Student 00:18
Det gör verkligen skillnad att vi kan prata igenom uppgiften i studiegruppen. Då är jag inte ensam om att hitta en väg framåt.
Intervjuare 00:31
Kan du berätta om ett konkret tillfälle när det hjälpte?
How to do it
How to transcribe a Swedish interview
1. Sign up with your university email
Use the address from your Swedish or Finnish university and confirm it with the code we send you. That gives you 7 free hours of audio a month, with no card and no trial. If your student email isn’t recognised, write to us.
2. Upload the recording and choose Swedish
Upload an mp3, m4a, wav or mp4; recordings several hours long are fine. Pick Swedish as the language or let Spirelight detect it. Picking it yourself is the safer choice when the recording is short or the speakers keep switching between Swedish and English.
3. Listen, correct and export to Word
Check the draft with the built-in player, fix names, compounds and specialist terms, and rename each speaker once for the whole document. Export to Word (.docx), plain text or SRT, or start coding.
Accuracy
What makes Swedish speech hard to transcribe
Swedish carries part of its meaning in melody. Most varieties have two word accents, so “anden” said with one melody is “the duck” and with the other “the spirit”. Most Finland Swedish speakers don’t make that distinction at all, and southern Swedish from Skåne, with its back r and its diphthongs, sounds different again from Stockholm speech. Accuracy depends mostly on the recording, and a strong regional accent is one of the things that causes more errors.
Stress also decides how words are written. With one main stress, “sjuksköterska” is a nurse; with stress on both parts, “sjuk sköterska” is a nurse who is ill. Swedish writes compounds as one word, so check them when you proofread, along with names and place names.
Everyday speech also differs from written Swedish. In speech, “de” and “dem” are both usually pronounced “dom”, and interviews with students often include English words such as “deadline” and “feedback”. Decide how you will write them, then keep to it.
- Record in a quiet room with the microphone close to both of you.
- Ask people not to talk over each other, especially in group interviews.
- Note names, places and abbreviations during the interview so you can check them later.
Conventions
Transcription conventions in Swedish theses
Kvale and Brinkmann’s Den kvalitativa forskningsintervjun, on the reading lists of methods courses at Gothenburg, Lund and Stockholm, gives transcription a chapter of its own and treats it as a series of choices rather than a mechanical copy of speech. Unless your department gives you a transcription key, you choose how close to speech you write, and you say why in your method section.
For a thematic analysis, a transcript in written-language form is often enough: “de” and “dem” as in writing, false starts left out. For discourse or conversation analysis you usually keep “dom”, repetitions, hesitations, pauses and overlaps. Whichever you choose, apply it to every interview. Our guide to verbatim transcription covers the levels and how to mark them.
Spirelight’s draft gives you the words, speaker labels and a timestamp on every speaker turn. For Swedish, “Word for word” and the cleaned-up style give the same draft, and neither changes repeats or false starts. If your method needs hesitations, pauses or dialect spellings, add them while you proofread, with the recording playing alongside.
Writing in English
Swedish interviews, English thesis
Sweden has a large number of master’s programmes taught in English, so many students write their thesis in English about interviews held in Swedish. Spirelight transcribes the language that was spoken and does not translate, which fits the usual way of working:
- Analyse and code the Swedish transcript, so you work with what people actually said.
- Translate only the quotes you use, and say in your method section that the translations are your own.
- Ask a native speaker to check key quotes, especially idioms, irony and understatement.
- Keep the Swedish transcripts, as an appendix if your department asks for them, and follow your supervisor on whether to show the original next to each quote.
Data and ethics
Ethics review and personal data in Sweden and Finland
In Sweden, research that involves sensitive personal data, such as health, ethnic origin or political opinions, needs approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten). Work done only within bachelor’s or master’s level studies, such as a kandidatuppsats or masteruppsats, does not count as research under the Ethical Review Act and needs no application. The authority says this exception should be applied restrictively, and it doesn’t cover work that overlaps with a research project.
That doesn’t make ethics optional. Your university is responsible for making sure student work is done ethically, and many have their own routine, such as an ethics self-review form you fill in with your supervisor. Recordings in which people can be identified are personal data, so follow your university’s rules on consent and storage.
In Finland, the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) lists when research in the human sciences needs an ethical review statement before data collection starts, for example when participation deviates from informed consent. If that applies to your thesis, request it with your supervisor. Wherever you study, check where Spirelight processes and stores your data before you upload.
Questions about transcribing Swedish audio
Can I transcribe Swedish audio to text for free?
Yes, if you are a student. Confirm a university email from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, France or Spain and you get 7 hours of audio free every month, with no card and no trial. Free hours reset each month and don’t roll over. Everyone else pays €2 per hour of audio, or €14 a month for Spirelight Plus with 10 hours included.
How accurate is Swedish speech to text?
It depends mostly on the recording. Clear audio with one person speaking at a time gives the best draft, while background noise, overlapping speech, strong regional accents (Finland Swedish, Skåne, Norrland) and specialist terms cause more errors, and compounds such as “sjuksköterska” need a check. Treat the transcript as a first draft, listen through it in the built-in player and check every quote you plan to use.
Can I get an English translation of my Swedish audio?
No. Spirelight transcribes Swedish speech into Swedish text and does not translate. If you write your thesis in English, translate the quotes you use yourself, say that the translations are yours and keep the Swedish transcript for your analysis.
Does Spirelight work with Finland Swedish and regional accents?
You can transcribe them: choose Swedish as the language. Finland Swedish has its own pronunciation and some words of its own, such as “ministerium” where Sweden says “departement”. Accents from Finland, Skåne, Gotland or Norrland can cause more errors than standard speech, so plan extra time to listen through those interviews.
Where does my Swedish audio go when I upload it?
Transcription runs on AssemblyAI’s servers in the EU. Your files, transcripts and account are stored with Google Firebase in the US, and if you use AI summaries or chat, the text is processed by OpenAI in the US. We don’t offer a data processing agreement (DPA). Whether you may upload interviews with personal data depends on your university’s rules, so ask your supervisor or the data protection officer. Our terms and privacy policy have the details.
Do I need ethics approval to interview people for my uppsats?
Not from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority if the work is done only within your bachelor’s or master’s studies: the Ethical Review Act doesn’t count it as research. The authority applies this exception restrictively, it doesn’t cover work that overlaps with a research project, and your university may still require its own ethics review. Ask your supervisor before you book the first interview.
Is Spirelight available in Swedish?
Partly. The website, sign-up, billing and the emails with your confirmation code are in Swedish. The editor where you transcribe and code is in English for now, and so are the help page and the terms. Consent form templates for recording in the browser are in English and Danish, so use your university’s own wording if it has one.
Other languages
Transcribing another language?
Each of these pages covers what to expect from that language’s recordings. Interview transcription covers file formats, proofreading and English recordings.
Get started
Stop typing out interviews by hand
Your next step is simple: sign up with your university email and upload your recording. You get a draft you can correct and download in Word.
7 free hours a month with an eligible university email · No card · No trial