Japanese Speech to Text for Free: Step-by-Step Guide

Do you have long Japanese recordings that need transcription, such as podcasts, meetings, or lectures?

Manually typing out all that Japanese audio as text is time-intensive and tedious. Professional transcribers confirm it can take 4 to 6 hours to convert a one-hour Japanese speech to text, depending on the audio quality.

In this article, we’ll explore how Fireflies.ai, an AI notetaker, can save you hours of this effort by producing accurate Japanese transcripts automatically in minutes.

Here’s the transcript of a Japanese speech by Prime Minister Kishida created using Fireflies:

The transcript is 90%+ accurate, time-stamped, and has voice labels. In addition, Fireflies also generated a concise summary of the speech, highlighting the key points.

Interesting? Read on to learn how to convert Japanese speech to text using Fireflies.

How to convert Japanese speech to text using Fireflies.ai

Fireflies can help you generate accurate Japanese transcriptions of your upcoming meetings and pre-recorded video or audio files.

To begin, log into your Fireflies account.

If you don’t have a Fireflies account, sign up using your Outlook or Google calendar.

Once in, select Settings on the left-side menu bar of your Fireflies Dashboard.

This will open the Meeting Settings. Go to Meeting Language and select Japanese from the dropdown menu.

Done! Your Fireflies account is set to transcribe Japanese conversations and recordings into accurate text by default.

How to transcribe meetings in Japanese using Fireflies.ai

Once you set the default language to Japanese, invite Fireflies to your meetings. The Fireflies bot will join as a silent participant to record, transcribe, and summarize it for you. 

Once the meeting ends, Fireflies will send an email update with a direct link to access the meeting recording and its transcription. 

Click the View meeting recap link on the email to open the transcription instantly.

You can also access the recorded meetings via Fireflies Notebook.

Do you only have meetings in Japanese occasionally? If so, we suggest you use the Fireflies meeting language customization option rather than adjusting the global settings repeatedly.

From the list of your upcoming meetings, select the desired language from the dropdown menu against the particular meeting. That’s it. 

How to transcribe a Japanese video or audio recording using Fireflies.ai

Transcribing pre-recorded audio or video files using Fireflies is also straightforward.

First, set your default meeting language to Japanese following the steps mentioned above. 

Once done, click Uploads on the left side menu bar.

Upload the Japanese audio file you want to transcribe in the Upload section. You upload files in MP3, MP4, M4A, and WAV formats.

Once done, you can see the uploaded file at the bottom of the same page.

Fireflies takes a few seconds to minutes to complete the transcription process. The time depends on the file size and the speed of your internet.

Once done, you’ll get an email notification from Fireflies. Similar to meetings, click on the View meeting recap link or open the Fireflies Notebook to access the transcription.

Open the file, review the transcript to ensure accuracy, and finalize it. Done! 

Here’s the Japanese speech we converted using Fireflies:

Fireflies can only recognize voices in an uploaded file. It marks these voices as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Speaker 3, etc. 

You can manually replace these voice labels with speaker names. Simply click Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Speaker 3, etc., on the transcript, type in the name, and click Update Speaker. That’s it!

Why use Fireflies to convert Japanese speech to text?

Here are a few reasons why you should choose Fireflies to convert Japanese speech to text:

• Generates accurate Japanese transcription in just minutes.
• Built-in editor and multiple download options—PDF, DOCX, SRT, VTT, and JSON.
• Customizable AI summaries for quick reviews.
• Snip and share conversation highlights as Soundbites.
• Annotate the transcript with comments and reactions.
• Quickly filter out important information from a transcript using Smart Search and AI filters—speaker, topics, sentiments, etc.
• GPT-powered chatbot, AskFred, answers any questions you may have about the transcript content and generates emails, articles, social media posts, etc., from its content.
• Seamless integrations with 40+ everyday apps like Notion, Slack, Aircall, Asana, and Zoom to automatically log call records, send updates, create tasks, etc.
• Security and data privacy—SOC 2 TYPE 2 and GDPR compliant, and also provides private storage and a HIPAA-compliant version on request. 
• Strict zero-day data retention and BAA policy—no user data is ever used to train Fireflies’ AI models. 
• 3 free transcription credits to transcribe uploaded files and unlimited free meeting transcription to all its users; conditions apply. Fireflies paid plans start at just $10/user/month.

Wrapping up,

Fireflies makes converting Japanese speech to text affordable and quick.

Rather than waiting for time-intensive and costly human transcription, you can now generate Japanese transcripts with over 90% accuracy in minutes using this AI tool. It delivers efficiency and convenience that past methods cannot match. 

So why wait? Log into your Fireflies account and start transcribing today.