Transcribing English interviews – this is how we do it!

We specialise in translating foreign language texts and transcribing audio and video from all over the world. But we also regularly work on English transcription projects, which don’t involve translation at all. Our team of experienced English transcriptionists are always on hand to turn audio into text, but just how do they do it?

Well, firstly we have to ensure that every member of our team is comfortable with the content. The audio files vary pretty dramatically. Sometimes we receive recordings with medical or pharmaceutical content, whereas at other times, the transcripts may be commissioned by financial institutions. Our transcribers come from a variety of backgrounds (medical secretaries and claims adjusters for example), and we always try to ensure that each job matches their prior professional experience.

The actual transcription process is quite involved. Our linguists work on PC terminals with specialist transcription software installed. The software is essentially like a rather sophisticated media player. The files are uploaded and the settings in the player can then be adjusted for any given file. If the speech is particularly fast, it’s easy to slow down the speed with which the software plays the audio file. And if the audio is crackly or poor quality, one can easily adjust certain frequencies, so that different speech becomes more (or less) prominent in the audio. This is particularly useful when a client requests a ’verbatim’ (word-for-word) transcript. But even if the final transcript will be ‘intelligent verbatim’ (with any ‘ums’, or ‘ers’ removed) it’s still necessary for the transcriptionist to hear exactly what is said.

The software we work with also has ‘hot-keys’ which allow the transcriptionist to fast-forward or rewind quickly. Many of our team, however, choose to work with a pedal. The pedal does essentially the same thing, but many people find it speeds the process up. This is obviously really helpful where one has a 24-hour turnaround project, as (ironically) we do today…

Need help?

Should you require our help with transcription services do not hesitate to get in touch with us and our team will do their best to help you.