Transcribe isiZulu oral history family and clan stories.
An isiZulu oral history, a family or clan story told by an elder over two to four hours, is transcribed in about 4 to 8 minutes. isiZulu is detected from the audio, the first 20 minutes are free, and a three-and-a-half-hour recording uses 210 of the 500 minutes on a $6 pack.
For the stories elders tell
An afternoon with an elder becomes a document the grandchildren can read.
The whole afternoon, kept
Elders rarely tell a story in twenty minutes. A four-hour session is text in about 8 minutes, and nothing needs cutting to fit a limit.
In the language it was told
isiZulu is detected automatically and the transcript stays in isiZulu. Songs and chanted praise poetry are not transcribed; the spoken telling is.
Generations as chapters
Chapters with timestamps follow the story as it moves from great-grandparents to the present. A grandchild looking for one branch of the family can go straight to it. Digitised tapes and phone recordings go through upload page.
The family tree, started
The brief lists the people, places and years the elder named. Ask the chat where a grandmother was born, and it finds the minute she was mentioned.
Why family recordings get lost
The recording sits on one phone, and the people in it are never written down.
✗ Audio on a phone
A long recording in isiZulu is hard to share and harder to search. When the elder is gone, it may be the only copy of those names, and a phone can be lost in a day.
- Four hours nobody replays
- Names heard once and forgotten
- No one with time to type it out
- Tools that cannot read isiZulu
- Upload limits of a few minutes
- Old tapes nobody has digitised
✓ A family document
Each recording becomes a text with names, places and a clock. Relatives far from home can read the story in the language it was told.
- Four hours of story in about 8 minutes
- isiZulu detected automatically
- Names and places in the brief
- Chapters per generation
- DOCX to print and share
- Eight elders on one $12 pack
Sample
An elder's telling, as text.
These lines are illustrative and written for this page; they do not come from a real family. In English: the elder begins, names where the family came from, describes a move, and recalls a lesson.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
isiZulu oral history recordings.
How long does a four-hour recording take?
About 8 minutes; two hours take about 4. You can close the page while it runs and find the text in your Library.
What does recording several elders cost?
Eight sessions averaging three hours are 24 hours, or 1,440 minutes, which the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes covers with 560 minutes left. A single 3.5-hour session uses 210 minutes of the $6 pack's 500. Minutes never expire, so the next visit to an elder can use what remains.
Can I transcribe old cassette recordings?
Yes, once they are digitised into an audio file. If the upload refuses the digitised file, convert it to MP3 first. A whole cassette side is short; several tapes joined into one file of up to 10 hours or 5 GB also work.
Should a long session be split by topic?
No. Upload the full recording and let the chapters divide it; splitting risks cutting a story in the middle.
Is isiZulu handled, and what about songs and praise poetry?
isiZulu is detected automatically. Sung parts and chanted praise poetry are not transcribed, only the speech. Have a family member read through the names of people and places once, since those matter most and are the hardest words for any machine.
Which files do I get, and who can hear the recording?
DOCX and TXT to keep and print, SRT and VTT for a captioned video, JSON for an archive. Family recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training, and they can be deleted from your Library at any time.
Related
More for oral history
Upload the elder's story. Read the first 20 minutes before deciding.
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