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Arabic Audio to Text العربية

Turn Arabic meetings, interviews and lectures into right-to-left text with speaker labels — in Modern Standard Arabic and in the Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine and Maghrebi dialects.

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Transcribe a YouTube link

Does SozAI transcribe Arabic?

SozAI transcribes Arabic audio and video into text in Modern Standard Arabic and in the Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine and Maghrebi dialects. It labels each speaker automatically, timestamps every word, writes the transcript right-to-left in the Arabic script, and exports to TXT, PDF, SRT and VTT. Recordings travel over HTTPS and are stored on our servers in Germany, and every account gets 30 minutes, once per account, without a card.

  • Arabic (abjad)
  • Right to left
  • Speaker labels
  • Word-level timestamps
  • SRT · VTT · PDF

العربية, written the way it is actually written.

Script
Arabic (abjad)
Direction
Right to left
Speakers
~400 million
Varieties
Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine, Maghrebi

Specification

Arabic transcription at a glance

Arabic — SozAI capability sheetAR
Native nameالعربية
ISO 639-1 codear
Writing systemArabic (abjad)
Text directionRight to left
Speakers worldwide~400 million
Varieties coveredModern Standard Arabic, Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine, Maghrebi
Speaker labelsYes — automatic diarization
TimestampsWord level
SummariesYes, in the same language
Export formatsTXT, PDF, SRT, VTT, JSON
Maximum file size500 MB
Free tier30 minutes once, no card
Where data is storedStored on our servers in Germany, encrypted in transit
Public transcripts in this language1,303

Workflow

How to transcribe Arabic audio

  1. 01

    Add the recording

    Record straight into the app, upload a file up to 500 MB, or paste a YouTube link. SozAI reads m4a, mp3, wav, aac, mp4 and mov.

  2. 02

    Set Arabic, or let it detect

    Choose Arabic when you already know the dialect, or leave detection on and SozAI identifies it from the first seconds of speech. Recordings that switch between Arabic and English stay in one transcript.

  3. 03

    Read, search and export

    The transcript arrives right-to-left with speaker labels and word timestamps. Search it, ask it questions, generate a summary in Arabic, or export SRT and VTT subtitles.

Field notes

What makes Arabic hard to transcribe

Written Arabic is not spoken Arabic

Almost nobody holds a conversation in Modern Standard Arabic. A Cairo meeting runs in Egyptian, a Beirut interview in Levantine, a Casablanca call in Darija — and all three are written down in the same script. A model trained mainly on broadcast MSA loses accuracy sharply on ordinary speech, which is why dialect coverage matters more here than a headline benchmark number.

Diacritics are optional, so the reader supplies them

Short vowels are written as harakat, and everyday Arabic text leaves them out entirely. The same three consonants can be a noun, an active verb or a passive verb depending on vowels nobody typed. SozAI writes undiacritized text, which is how Arabic is actually written, and resolves the ambiguity from context instead of adding harakat a reader would not expect to see.

Right-to-left text with left-to-right fragments inside it

Arabic transcripts routinely contain Latin brand names, product codes, URLs and Western numerals. Those run left-to-right inside a right-to-left paragraph, and tools that ignore the bidirectional algorithm scramble the order on export. SozAI keeps bidirectional runs intact in the app and in SRT and VTT files.

Code-switching with English and French

Gulf business calls slip into English and Maghrebi conversation into French, often mid-sentence. Splitting that into two files loses the thread of the discussion. SozAI keeps a code-switched conversation in a single transcript, with each fragment written in its own script and in the order it was spoken.

Answers

Arabic transcription — your questions

Short answers you can quote. Longer ones live in the sections above.

Which Arabic dialects can SozAI transcribe?

SozAI handles Modern Standard Arabic plus the major spoken varieties: Egyptian, Gulf (Khaliji), Levantine (Shami) and Maghrebi. You can set the dialect yourself or let automatic detection choose. Accuracy is highest on clear, single-speaker MSA and falls on heavy dialect recorded over poor audio, so microphone quality matters more in Arabic than it does in many other languages.

Does the transcript come out right-to-left?

Yes. The transcript is written in the Arabic script and laid out right-to-left everywhere it appears: in the app, in search results, and in every export. Latin words, numerals and URLs inside an Arabic sentence keep their own direction, so a product name or a link does not come out reversed in your PDF or SRT file.

Can it tell speakers apart in an Arabic recording?

Yes. Speaker diarization works on the audio rather than the language, so it separates voices in Arabic exactly as it does in English. Each turn gets a speaker label and a timestamp. For interviews, focus groups and depositions this is usually the difference between a transcript you can quote from and a wall of text.

Are Arabic subtitles exported correctly?

SozAI exports Arabic subtitles as SRT and VTT with word-level timing. The files carry Arabic text in UTF-8 with bidirectional runs preserved, so they load correctly in YouTube, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve without manual re-ordering of mixed Arabic and Latin lines.

What happens with recordings that mix Arabic and English?

Code-switched recordings stay in one transcript. SozAI writes the Arabic in Arabic script and the English in Latin script, in the order they were spoken, rather than forcing everything into a single language. This is common in Gulf business calls and in university lectures, and splitting the file is almost never what you want.

How much does Arabic transcription cost?

Every account gets 30 minutes of transcription once, at no cost and without a card. Beyond that, Premium is a subscription through the App Store or Google Play — from $3.99 a week or $44.99 a year in the US — and the price is the same in every language. Current plans are listed on the pricing page.

Transcribe your first Arabic recording

Record, upload a file or paste a link. The transcript comes back right-to-left with speakers and timestamps.

Get the App — Free

Free on iOS and Android. No account required for YouTube transcripts.