Transcribe isiZulu research interviews for coding and analysis.
A research interview conducted in isiZulu, usually 60 to 120 minutes, is transcribed in 2 to 4 minutes and comes back as a DOCX you can code. isiZulu is detected from the audio, the first 20 minutes are free, and twenty 90-minute interviews fit on the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes.
For fieldwork in isiZulu
Fieldwork recorded in isiZulu, turned into text you can code this week.
A full set in an afternoon
At roughly 2 minutes per hour of audio, a 90-minute interview takes about 3 minutes. A set of twenty is text in about an hour, leaving the weeks for analysis instead of typing.
The participant's own words
isiZulu is detected automatically, and a participant who slips into English for a phrase or a term is transcribed on the interview's main language with the switch kept. The text stays in isiZulu; translating quotes for your write-up remains your step.
Shaped like your guide
Chapters with timestamps follow the turns of the conversation, so the section on each question in your guide is easy to find. Recorder files from the field go through upload page.
Themes surfaced, not decided
The brief notes the themes, names, places and numbers in the interview, and the chat answers questions about it with the minute it was said. Use it to find passages; the coding stays yours.
Where isiZulu fieldwork gets stuck
Typing out an hour of isiZulu by hand can take a full working day, and a study has dozens of hours.
✗ Typing it yourself
Manual transcription is the slowest part of qualitative work, and paid services for isiZulu are scarce.
- A day of typing per interview hour
- Weeks waiting on an outside typist
- English-only tools that miss isiZulu
- Uploads capped at a few minutes
- Subscription plans for a one-off study
- Notes that lose the participant's wording
✓ Text in the participant's language
Each interview becomes a document with times, ready for your software.
- Around 4 minutes per two-hour interview
- isiZulu detected automatically
- DOCX with timestamps for coding
- A chapter for each block of your interview guide
- Twenty interviews on one $12 pack
- Recordings deleted on request
Sample
An interview excerpt, as it arrives.
This excerpt is illustrative and written for this page; it is not from a real participant or study. In English: the interviewer asks about growing up, the participant answers, the interviewer probes, and the participant gives an example.
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 interview transcription for research.
How long does each interview take?
About 2 minutes for a 60-minute interview and about 4 for 120 minutes. You can upload the next file while the first is running, and every transcript lands in your Library.
What would an entire isiZulu study cost?
Twenty interviews of 90 minutes come to 1,800 minutes, which the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes covers with 200 left over for a pilot or a follow-up. Five 90-minute interviews, 450 minutes, fit the $6 pack of 500 minutes. A larger study of forty interviews belongs on the $24 pack of 5,000 minutes.
Is there a file size limit for field recordings?
One file can run to 10 hours or 5 GB, and before your first pack uploads go up to 2 GB. A 90-minute WAV at CD quality is about 950 MB (1,411 kbps for 5,400 seconds). If the upload refuses the recorder's file, convert it to MP3 first.
Two interviews are on one recording. Do I split it?
You can upload it whole; the chapters and timestamps show where the second conversation begins. Split it first only if your analysis software needs one file per participant.
How well does it handle isiZulu, and do I still check it?
isiZulu is detected automatically and the transcript is in isiZulu. Plan to listen through once against the text before coding, as any careful study would with a human typist, paying attention to names, places and quiet passages.
Which formats come back, and how is participant data handled?
DOCX and TXT for coding software, SRT and VTT if you play the audio alongside, JSON for scripts. Interview recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training, and you can delete each file from your Library when your ethics protocol requires it.
Related
More for research recordings
Upload your first interview. Check the first 20 minutes before you commit the study.
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