GoLocalise
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Transcription · English

English transcription services

Native English transcribers for corporate video, eLearning and legal proceedings. Verbatim and clean read, time-coded, with UK, US, Australian or Canadian spelling fixed and held consistent. Part of a full English language service: transcripts, subtitles, voice over, and translation of any content.

Native English transcribers
Verbatim or clean read
Timecodes & speaker IDs
Proofread by a second linguist
Confidential, under NDA
Native English transcribers
Verbatim or clean read
Timecodes & speaker IDs
Proofread by a second linguist
Confidential, under NDA

About English transcription

Where English is spoken and why one spelling never covers it

English has around 335 million native speakers (Ethnologue), and is an official or de facto working language across dozens of countries, from the UK and Ireland to the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of the Commonwealth. Unlike French or Spanish, no single academy sets its spelling: each major variety is fixed by its own dictionaries and style guides instead.

That is why English transcription is never just 'English': it is British, American, Australian or Canadian English, each with its own spelling conventions, and Canadian usage sitting deliberately between British and American rather than matching either one throughout.

At GoLocalise, we work with professional English transcribers who are native speakers, and we manage every step — file intake and brief, transcription, time-coding, formatting and final delivery — so the transcript you receive is accurate to the audio and ready for its intended use.

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A linguist proofreading a printed transcript against the original recording

Choose your format

Three ways to transcribe the same recording

The right one depends on what the transcript is for. If you are not sure, tell us the use case and we will recommend it.

Full verbatim

Every word

Captures every utterance, pause and non-standard pronunciation exactly as spoken, including false starts and overlap.

Best for

Legal proceedings, research interviews, compliance content

Clean read

Edited

Removes filler words, false starts and repeated phrases for readability, while keeping meaning and speaker intent intact.

Best for

Corporate video, interviews for publication, content to be translated

Summarised

Key points

Condenses the discussion into structured key points rather than a full record of the conversation.

Best for

Executive briefings, legal summaries, research documentation

What's included

What comes with every English transcript

English, English, or both

A source transcript, an English translation, or the two side by side. The translation is produced from the original audio, not from the transcript alone.

Timecodes

Stamped at the interval you need — per speaker turn, per paragraph or at fixed intervals, matched to your edit or subtitle workflow.

Speaker identification

Every turn attributed, by name where you supply them or by role where you don't — including through overlap.

Proofreading pass

A second native English linguist reads the transcript against the audio before it reaches you.

Terminology kept

Legal, medical or technical vocabulary rendered to the convention your sector uses, not paraphrased.

Your format

Plain text, Word, PDF, SRT, VTT or a client-specific template — tell us the next step.

How it works

One project manager, from brief to delivery

A structured workflow, built so accuracy and confidentiality are verified at each stage rather than assumed at the end.

1

File intake and brief

We review your audio or video, confirm the transcript type (verbatim, clean read, time-coded), and note any terminology, speaker labels or formatting you need.

2

Transcriber assignment

We match your content to a native English transcriber with the right background, whether legal, medical, corporate or media.

3

Transcription and QA

The transcriber works directly from your files. A second linguist reviews the transcript against the audio for accuracy, speaker identification and consistency.

4

Delivery

Formatted transcripts in your chosen format, whether plain text, SRT, VTT or a client-specific template, on budget and on time.

For multi-speaker research, hearings or archive projects, we assign a coordinated team and agree milestones up front.

Who we work with

Industries that rely on English transcription

A written record is a compliance requirement in some sectors and an accessibility one in others. These are the English briefs we see most.

Legal & compliance

Hearings, depositions and arbitration, transcribed verbatim and formatted to requirement.

Automotive & electronics

Technical briefings, supplier negotiations and training material.

Broadcast & media

Interviews, documentaries and archive footage, with subtitle-ready templates.

Market research

Focus groups and interviews, including sessions with heavy speaker overlap.

Business & shared services

Client calls, process documentation and training material.

Academic & research

Lectures, field interviews and research material.

Confidentiality

Who hears your English audio

English transcription often means board material from a head office in the head office, arbitration, pre-release production audio or research interviews recorded on the understanding they stay private. So who hears it matters as much as how accurately it is captured.

Your files are uploaded through an encrypted system, handled by a named English transcriber under NDA, and never fed into public speech-to-text tools. We will sign your own confidentiality agreement, follow your retention rules, and delete everything on delivery if your policy requires it.

Encrypted upload

No loose files over email.

NDA as standard

Yours or ours, before we start.

No public AI tools

Your audio never trains anything.

Deletion on request

Files removed on delivery if you need it.

English specifics

A transcript can be perfectly correct and still be in the wrong English

English does not have one spelling to get right — it has several, and the differences are systematic rather than random. British usage takes -our and -ise (colour, organise), American usage takes -or and -ize (color, organize), and the two also split on -re/-er (centre/center) and on doubling a final l before a suffix (labelled/labeled). Neither convention is a mistake: they are two complete systems, and a recording gives no clue which one the client wants, because nobody pronounces the difference between colour and color.

Canada makes the point sharper rather than settling it. Canadian English is not a third clean standard: it runs British and American conventions side by side, favouring British spellings such as colour and cheque while using American forms such as tire and increasingly -ize. The Government of Canada's own Translation Bureau publishes a dedicated style guide, The Canadian Style, with a chapter on spelling that exists precisely because the mix does not resolve itself — a document has to pick a lane and hold it.

So the convention gets fixed before the first minute of audio is transcribed, not corrected at the end. We ask which spelling standard your document needs — UK, US, Australian or Canadian — assign a transcriber trained in it, and hold it consistently across the whole file, including in headings, terminology and any translation delivered alongside it. Send us a sample and we will confirm the convention with you before you commit.

Transcription rates

Professional English transcription

Standard

Best for clean read transcripts of corporate video, interviews and internal communications.

  • Native English transcriber
  • Verbatim or clean read
  • Speaker identification
  • Proofreading pass
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Full production

A complete managed service for legal proceedings, multi-speaker research and longer-form content requiring verbatim, time-coded or translated deliverables.

  • Everything in Standard
  • Subject-specialist linguist
  • Timecodes and speaker IDs
  • English and English in one pass
Get a quote

Priced by runtime, audio quality, number of speakers and turnaround, and backed by our Price Match Promise. Send us a sample for an exact, no-obligation quote.

Trusted by global brands

We have used GoLocalise on a regular basis for projects in a number of languages. The service we receive is great. The team is always friendly and professional. The voiceovers we receive are of a very high quality and the turnaround is extremely quick. We are very happy to recommend GoLocalise to other businesses.
Jo SamuelAnimator at Pixel Circus
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It was a pleasure to work with David and the team at GoLocalise. David gave me lots of help and advice, guiding me through my first subtitling project. He really knows his stuff! The experience was completely pain-free. I would not hesitate to recommend GoLocalise – outstanding work at a good price.
Kerry GilliesDirector at Synergy Language Services
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They're reliable, adaptive and obsessed with quality. And while you can never be 100% guaranteed of perfection, you can be sure GoLocalise will go the extra mile to get it right every time. We've worked with them now for over 5 years and we are truly thankful to have such a strong localisation partner for our business.
Lucas ColeSales and Marketing Director at Epipheo
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Most common questions

Which English spelling should my transcript use?

Whichever your document needs — UK, US, Australian or Canadian — agreed before we start rather than fixed halfway through. UK usage takes colour and organise, US usage takes color and organize, and Canadian English runs the two side by side rather than matching either one throughout. Tell us the audience and the convention gets applied consistently from the first line to the last.

Is Canadian English just British or American spelling?

Neither, cleanly. Canadian usage mixes both: colour and cheque alongside tire and increasingly -ize endings. It is documented as its own convention in the Canadian government's own style guide, The Canadian Style, precisely because the mix does not resolve on its own. If your audience is Canadian, tell us and we hold that specific mix throughout, rather than defaulting to UK or US spelling.

What happens if the spelling convention isn't specified?

We ask before transcription starts, because fixing it afterwards means re-reading the whole document. If a project genuinely has no preference, we default to UK spelling and flag it clearly on delivery so it can be changed with a straightforward find-and-replace pass rather than a full re-proof.

The recording is poor and several people talk over each other. Is that a problem?

It is normal work. Phone audio, site noise, focus groups and meetings where three people speak at once all get transcribed here; what changes is how long it takes and how much of it a second pass has to resolve. Where a passage is genuinely inaudible we mark it rather than guess, with a timecode so you can check it yourself.

Can you tell me in advance what you will be able to capture?

Yes. Send a sample first and we listen to it before quoting, then tell you straight what we expect to get and what we do not. That is a better conversation before you book than after the transcript arrives.

Can I get the transcript and an English translation?

Yes, as a source transcript, an English translation, or the two side by side. The same native transcriber produces the source text and a separate qualified translator works from the original audio rather than from the transcript alone, which is what keeps a mishearing from travelling into the translation.

Should I ask for verbatim or clean read?

Clean read suits corporate video, interviews for publication and anything heading for translation: filler words and false starts come out, the meaning stays. Verbatim is what legal proceedings, compliance material and research interviews need, because every utterance and pause is on the record. Your project manager confirms the choice against your end use before work starts.

Is my audio kept confidential?

Yes. Files are uploaded through an encrypted system, handled by a named transcriber under NDA, and never fed into public speech-to-text tools. We can sign your own confidentiality agreement, work to your retention rules and delete everything on delivery.

How much does transcription cost?

Every file is quoted on its own terms. Runtime, audio quality, how many people are speaking, the turnaround you need and whether you also want a translation all move the figure, so there is no flat per-minute rate that would be honest across all of them. Send us a sample and we will come back with an exact, itemised number, backed by our Price Match Promise.

How quickly can you deliver?

Most short files come back within 24 to 48 hours. Length, audio quality and whether you need time-coding or full verbatim all affect it, and a large multi-speaker project is scheduled rather than rushed. Your project manager confirms the timeline before work starts, not after.

How will the finished English transcript be delivered?

In whatever the next step needs: plain text, Word, PDF, Excel, SRT, VTT or your own template, with timecodes and speaker labels set the way you want them. Tell us what happens to the transcript after we send it and we format it for that, rather than handing you a file you have to rework.

What do you need from us to quote English transcription?

Less than people expect: the recording, or even a few minutes of it, its total running time, roughly how many people are speaking, and whether you want verbatim or clean read. Poor audio does not stop a quote, it only changes it, so send it as it is rather than trying to clean it up first. A named project manager comes back with an itemised quote, normally within four working hours.

How quickly will we hear back, and who will we be dealing with?

More than half of enquiries get a reply within thirty minutes during office hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm UK time), and the itemised quote normally follows within four working hours. After that you have one dedicated project manager who owns the job from brief to final file — not a ticket queue, and not a different name on every email. If it is easier, call +44 207 095 5730 and ask for them by name.

We are still pitching and the budget is not signed off. Can we still get an English quote?

Yes, and it is one of the commonest reasons people get in touch. Tell us it is for a pitch and you get a figure you can put in front of your own client, itemised so it stands up to being picked apart, with no obligation and no follow-up sales calls if the pitch goes elsewhere. If it lands, the quote still holds and we already know the project.

What if we find a cheaper English quote somewhere else?

Send it over. Our Price Match Promise covers like-for-like work, and because our quotes are itemised you can see exactly what is being compared — which is usually where the gap turns out to be, in a revision pass, a licence or a delivery format that the cheaper figure quietly left out. If it really is the same work for less, we match it.

Can we start with one file before committing the whole English project?

Yes, and we would often suggest it. One episode, one module, one commercial tells you more about whether we are a fit than any showreel, and it prices the rest of the run properly instead of by estimate. Bigger projects are then planned in clear milestones, so you are signing off the transcripts as they arrive rather than all of them at the end.

Ready to transcribe your English audio?

Send us the files and tell us where the transcript will end up — we'll come back with an exact, itemised quote.

The complete solution to localise your content

Voice over

  • State-of-the-art studios
  • Neumann microphones
  • On-hand sound engineers
  • 1,000+ voice actors
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Translation

  • 100+ languages covered
  • Tailored to your needs
  • Stringent quality control
  • Dedicated project managers
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Subtitling

  • Experienced subtitlers
  • Industry-standard software
  • Burn-in and graphic editing
  • Open and closed captions
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Transcription

  • Improve accessibility
  • Reach a wider audience
  • Boost SEO and video views
  • Maximise video engagement
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