Transcription · Finnish
Finnish transcription services
Native Finnish transcribers for legal proceedings, corporate meetings, broadcast, market research and academic interviews — with the one thing Finnish makes uniquely tempting, writing speech exactly as it sounds, treated as a decision you make rather than a default the transcriber falls into.
About Finnish transcription
Find the right Finnish transcription for your project
Finnish is an official language of Finland and of the European Union, and its spelling is famously close to its sound: with few exceptions, each letter stands for one sound and each sound for one letter. The written standard — yleiskieli, maintained by the Kielitoimisto at the Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotus) — is what news, official documents and textbooks are written in.
What people say is something else. Spoken Finnish drops syllables, merges endings and shortens numbers: minä syön becomes mä syön, menemme becomes me mennään, kuusikymmentäviisi becomes kuuskytviis. In most languages a transcriber cannot easily write that down. In Finnish they can — the orthography lets you spell speech exactly as heard — which means every Finnish transcript embodies a choice: the record of what was said, or the standard the reader expects. Left to habit, transcribers make it differently from line to line.
At GoLocalise, we work with native Finnish transcribers who make that choice with you, once, and apply it throughout, and a project manager who stays across every step — from speaker identification through to proofreading, time-coding and delivery.
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 wordRecords every spoken detail, including pauses, filler words, repetitions and hesitations, exactly as they occur — in Finnish, that can include the spoken forms themselves.
Best for
Court records, sociolinguistic research, disciplinary hearings
Edited
Clean readRemoves redundant words and hesitations while keeping the meaning and the speaker's intent fully intact.
Best for
Interviews for publication, broadcast material, content to be translated
Summarised
Key pointsCondenses the discussion into structured key points rather than a full record of the conversation.
Best for
Meeting minutes, focus-group reporting, internal documentation
What's included
What comes with every Finnish transcript
Spoken or standard, stated
Puhekieli as spoken, or yleiskieli on the page — agreed at the brief, noted on the transcript, held across the file.
Numbers resolved
Yks, kaks and kuuskytviis rendered as the figures they are, and checked against the audio where amounts matter.
Compounds and cases correct
Finnish builds long compound words and fifteen noun cases; both are written to the Kielitoimisto norm, not approximated.
Timecodes
Stamped at the interval you need — per speaker turn, per paragraph or at fixed intervals.
Speaker identification
Every turn attributed, by name where you supply them or by role where you don't.
Your format
Word, PDF, plain text, Excel or a subtitle-ready file — 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.
Brief review
We review your audio, the subject matter, any speaker lists and your target output — and agree whether the page carries spoken Finnish or the standard.
Transcriber assignment
We match your project to a native Finnish transcriber with the right subject expertise, whether legal, corporate, media or research.
Transcription
The recording is transcribed in the agreed register, with speaker labels and timestamps applied as briefed.
Consistency check
A second linguist checks the transcript against the audio and for drift between spoken and standard forms.
Delivery
Clean, time-coded transcripts in your chosen format, on budget and on time.
Tell us whether anyone will need to quote the speakers' exact words, and whether the recording carries figures that matter. Those two answers decide the register and how carefully the numbers are checked.
Who we work with
Industries that rely on Finnish transcription
Finland's public sector, technology and forestry industries and its universities produce a lot of formally documented speech. These are the briefs we see most.
Legal
Court hearings, arbitration and witness statements, transcribed verbatim and formatted to requirement.
Government & public sector
Ministry and municipal meetings, consultations and Eduskunta-related material.
Technology & industry
Product research, engineering reviews and internal communications across Finland's technology and forest sectors.
Market research
Focus groups and in-depth interviews, where spoken Finnish is what people actually produce.
Broadcast & media
News, documentary and interview material with subtitle-ready templates.
Academic
Research interviews, lectures and linguistic corpora from Finnish universities.
Confidentiality
Who hears your Finnish audio
Finnish transcription frequently means legal proceedings, HR matters or research interviews recorded with people who agreed to be recorded on particular terms. 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 Finnish 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.
Finnish specifics
Finnish lets you write speech exactly as it sounds. That is precisely why you have to decide not to.
In most languages the gap between how a word is said and how it is spelled forces a transcriber towards the standard whether they like it or not: English gonna has no respectable written form, so it becomes going to. Finnish is different. Its orthography is close enough to phonemic that spoken forms can be written down as they are, and they look like Finnish. Mä syön for minä syön; me mennään for menemme — a construction the Kielitoimisto notes is common but not the standard's recommendation; punanen for punainen, kaupungis for kaupungissa, ollaanks for ollaanko. The written standard, yleiskieli, is what Kotus describes as the language of news, official text and teaching; what comes out of a focus group in Tampere or a board meeting in Espoo is puhekieli, and it can go onto the page unchanged.
That is the trap. Because it can be written literally, transcribers do — some of the time. A file comes back with minä in one paragraph and mä in the next, standard verb endings in the formal opening and spoken ones once the conversation warms up, and the reader cannot tell whether the variation is the speaker's or the typist's. The honest options are two. Write the speech as spoken, consistently, for a court, a tribunal, a linguist, anyone who may later need the exact words. Or bring it to yleiskieli, consistently, for a report, an article, a translation or a subtitle file, where the reader wants the content and not the register. We make that decision with you at the brief, state it on the document, and check for drift in proofreading — because drift, not either choice, is the failure.
One place the decision matters more than anywhere else is numbers. Spoken Finnish shortens them hard: yks for yksi, kaks for kaksi, kuuskytviis for kuusikymmentäviisi (65). In a verbatim transcript those forms stay; in any document that carries amounts, dates, quantities or references, they have to become the right digits, and the shortened forms are exactly where a fast ear mishears. We verify figures against the audio rather than converting on the fly. Around all of this sit the things Finnish demands whatever the register — long compounds written as single words, fifteen noun cases on every name and term — which is where a native transcriber, rather than a good listener, earns the difference.
Transcription rates
Professional Finnish transcription
Best for single-speaker interviews, dictation and short corporate content.
- Native Finnish transcriber
- Verbatim or clean read
- Speaker identification
- Proofreading pass
A complete managed service for legal material, multi-speaker meetings, research corpora and anything that has to stand as a faithful record.
- Everything in Standard
- Register fixed and checked for drift
- Timecodes and speaker IDs
- Figures verified against audio
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.
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.
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.
Related services
What happens after the transcript
Transcription in more languages
Native transcribers for interviews, meetings, research, media and legal material. Browse another language, or ask us about yours.
Most common questions
What is the difference between puhekieli and yleiskieli?
Yleiskieli is standard written Finnish — the language of news, official documents and teaching, maintained by the Kielitoimisto at Kotus. Puhekieli is spoken Finnish, which shortens and merges forms: mä for minä, me mennään for menemme, kuuskytviis for kuusikymmentäviisi. Because Finnish spelling is nearly phonemic, spoken forms can be written down exactly as heard, so every transcript involves a choice between recording the speech and rendering the standard.
Which should we ask for?
If anyone may need the speakers' exact words — a court, a tribunal, an HR process, a linguist — ask for the speech as spoken, consistently. If the transcript feeds a report, an article, a translation or subtitles, yleiskieli usually serves better. Where a project needs both, we deliver a verbatim version and a standardised one. What we avoid is the mixture, which is what happens when nobody decides.
Why do you make a point of checking numbers?
Because spoken Finnish shortens them aggressively — yks, kaks, kuuskytviis — and those clipped forms are exactly where a fast ear mishears. In verbatim work they stay as spoken; in any document that carries amounts, dates or references, they become digits, and we verify those against the audio rather than converting on the fly.
Our speakers are from different regions. Does that change the transcript?
Spoken Finnish varies by region and the transcriber needs to know what to expect, so tell us. On the page it changes nothing if you have chosen yleiskieli, and it is preserved if you have chosen speech as spoken. For dialect research specifically, say so and we keep regional forms deliberately.
The recording includes Swedish. Can you handle it?
Yes. Swedish is Finland's other national language and mixed meetings are normal. We transcribe both, mark each switch, and can translate one into the other if the document has to be read in a single language.
How quickly can a Finnish transcription project be delivered?
Most short projects are delivered within 24 to 48 hours, but the exact turnaround depends on audio length, audio quality, the number of speakers and whether time-coding is required. Your project manager will confirm the timeline at the start.
Why not run Finnish audio through an automated tool?
Because Finnish makes the register problem worse for a machine, not better: the tool can write the spoken forms, so it does, inconsistently, and you get a document that is neither a record nor standard Finnish. Long compounds and case endings on names add their own errors. The correction pass ends up longer than transcribing natively.
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.
What formats do you deliver Finnish transcripts in?
Word, PDF, plain text, Excel or a subtitle-ready file, with timecodes and speaker labels where you need them. Tell us what the transcript is for and we will deliver it in the format the next step requires.
Ready to transcribe your Finnish audio?
Send us the files and tell us whether you need the record or the readable version — we'll come back with an exact, itemised quote.
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