Latvian transcription services

Because Latvian grammar requires it. Foreign names are respelled to Latvian phonetic norms and given a Latvian case ending so they function correctly in a Latvian sentence — Donald Trump becomes Donalds Tramps, Gerard Depardieu becomes Žerārs Depardjē. It is not a mistake or an inconsistency; it is how the name has to appear for the sentence to be grammatical Latvian.

It is established practice with the backing of the state, and it has been tested in court. Latvia's Constitutional Court ruled in 2001 that adapting names to Latvian spelling and grammar in official documents is lawful, while limiting how far names already on record could be changed without consent. The rule has also produced at least half a dozen lawsuits, including one decided in the claimant's favour by the UN Human Rights Committee.

Yes, and we recommend it whenever a name needs to be recognisable outside Latvian-language use — a brand, a legal party, a public figure. We note the source spelling next to the adapted one so the transcript is grammatically correct in Latvian and unambiguous for anyone cross-referencing it.

Yes. The same name can take a different ending depending on its grammatical role, the way any Latvian noun does. A transcriber has to read the sentence, not just the name, to choose the right form, which is why this is editorial work rather than a simple find-and-replace list.

Clean read suits corporate video, interviews for publication and anything heading for translation: filler words and false starts come out, 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.

There is no flat rate, because no two files take the same work. Runtime, recording quality, how many people are talking, your deadline and whether you also need an English version all move the figure. So does how many foreign names the audio contains, since each one needs a grammatical decision rather than a straight copy. Every quote carries our Price Match Promise.

Upload is encrypted, the file goes to one named Latvian transcriber who has signed an NDA, and nothing is put through public speech-to-text services at any point. If you have your own confidentiality agreement we sign it, if you have retention rules we work to them, and if your policy says the audio goes once the transcript is approved, we delete it.

It is normal work. Phone audio, site noise, focus groups and meetings where three people speak at once all get transcribed. What difficult audio changes is time, and occasionally certainty about a boundary or a name. We listen to a sample first and tell you straight what we expect to be able to capture, rather than handing you a file peppered with inaudible tags.