Interviews & research
One-to-one interviews, oral histories, focus groups and ethnographic sessions. Speaker labels, inaudible markers and the hesitations that matter to analysis are kept intact.
Language services · Transcription
Hausa and English transcription, word for word
Send us the recording and we return clean, well-punctuated text you can quote, publish or analyse. Interviews, focus groups, research sessions, sermons, podcasts, meetings and broadcast media — transcribed by people who actually speak the language on the tape.
Overview
A transcript you can hand straight to a reader
Automatic tools are cheap and roughly right. On Hausa audio they are frequently wrong in the ways that matter most: names, place names, idioms, and the difference between what a speaker said and what they meant. Every recording we take on is transcribed by a native Hausa speaker who also works fluently in English.
We work with research teams, NGOs, media houses, churches, universities and private clients. Some need a verbatim record for analysis; others need a clean read for publication or broadcast. Tell us which standard you need and we work to it from the first pass, rather than asking you to fix it afterwards.
Recordings are handled confidentially. We are happy to sign an NDA before you send anything, and client material is never used for training, demonstrations or marketing.
- Bilingual transcribers. Hausa, English and code-switched conversation handled by one person who understands both.
- Verbatim or clean read. Your choice of standard, applied consistently across every file.
- Speaker labels and timecodes. Available on request, so an editor or analyst can navigate the recording.
- Confidential by default. NDA signed before material is received.
- Delivered how you work. Word-processing document, spreadsheet, or plain text for analysis software.
- Unclear passages flagged, never guessed. You always know where the recording itself is ambiguous.
What we transcribe
Recordings we handle every week
If it is spoken in Hausa or English and it matters to your work, we can put it in writing.
Media & broadcast
Radio, television, podcast, YouTube and documentary audio. Timecodes available so an editor can cut precisely to the sentence they need.
Meetings & webinars
Board meetings, community consultations, training sessions and webinars, delivered in a minutes-ready format with speakers identified wherever the audio allows.
Sermons & teaching
Sermons, lectures, tafsir and teaching series in Hausa — a large part of our work, usually requested as a clean read for publication or for the congregation’s archive.
Health & community work
Health outreach, vaccination and awareness campaigns, and community interviews — handled with the confidentiality that field research requires.
Subtitling-ready text
Transcripts prepared with subtitles or translation in mind: split into natural caption-length segments so the next stage of your project is faster and less expensive.
How it works
From recording to finished transcript
01
Send the recordings
Share your audio or video by link or file transfer, with the language used, the total running time and the deadline you are working to.
02
Agree the standard and the quote
We confirm whether you want verbatim or clean-read output, the delivery format and the deadline with you at kick-off, then quote for the work in writing.
03
Native-speaker transcription
A bilingual transcriber works through the recording in full, with a second pair of ears on any passage that is unclear, heavily accented or inaudible.
04
Quality check and delivery
You receive the finished transcript with a note of any passages that need your input. Anything you query is corrected and returned.
Deliverables & deadlines
Delivered in the format your team already uses
What you receive
- Word-processing document with consistent punctuation, headings and speaker labels.
- Spreadsheet with one row per speaker turn, ready for coding or analysis.
- Plain text for import into research or subtitling software.
- Time-coded transcript where an editor or producer needs to work against the timeline.
- Bilingual layout where the recording runs in Hausa and English together.
Working to your deadline
- Send the full recording set up front where possible, so the schedule is realistic from day one.
- Tell us about unusual names, technical vocabulary, acronyms or strong regional accents in advance.
- Long-running research projects can be scheduled in batches so transcripts arrive as you need them.
- The deadline is agreed with you before work starts — not estimated afterwards.
Better recordings make better transcripts. If you are still planning your fieldwork, ask us first — a short conversation about microphones, quiet rooms and how to mark speakers saves time and money later.
Questions
Transcription, answered
Yes, and it is common. Code-switched recordings are handled by one bilingual transcriber, with each switch kept as the speaker actually said it rather than normalised into one language.
It is marked with a clear convention such as [inaudible] or [unclear 00:14:22] and listed for you at the end. We never fill a gap with a guess — in research, a plausible invention is worse than an obvious gap.
Yes, before any material is transferred. Recordings and transcripts are shared only with the team members working on your file, and are not used for training, samples or promotion.
Pricing depends on the running time, how many speakers overlap, the audio quality and the output standard you need. Send us the recordings and we will come back with a written quote — see how pricing works.
Get started
Send us a recording and we will assess it
Tell us the language, the running time and the deadline. We will confirm the output standard, the format and a written quote before anything begins — and sign an NDA first if you need one.