How to turn Hindi audio into English text (4 ways, compared)

You have a recording in Hindi, or in the Hindi-English mix most of us actually speak, and you need it in English text. Maybe it is a client call, an interview, or a voice note from a customer. There are four realistic ways to do it, and they are good at very different things.

First, decide what you actually need

• A Hindi transcript (the words as spoken, in Devanagari) is one job.
• An English translation of what was said is another.
• English notes (summary, decisions, action items) from a conversation is a third.

Most tools do one of these well. Pick the tool for the job you have.

1. Google Docs voice typing

Good for: dictating short notes in Hindi yourself.

In Google Docs on Chrome, open Tools → Voice typing, choose Hindi from the language menu, click the microphone and speak. It types what it hears, in Devanagari.

Limits: it listens to your microphone live, so it does not take audio files, and it types in the language you selected instead of translating to English. It is a dictation tool, not a way to process recordings.

Cost: free.

2. OpenAI Whisper (open source)

Good for: people comfortable with the command line who want to process files on their own computer.

Whisper is an open-source speech-recognition model that supports Hindi. It can transcribe Hindi audio, and it can also translate speech directly into English text with its translate option.

Limits: you need to install it and run it yourself (Python and, ideally, a decent GPU), long files take time on an ordinary laptop, and accuracy on fast, code-mixed Hinglish varies. You get text, not notes or speaker names.

Cost: free to run on your own machine.

3. A speech-to-text API built for Indian languages

Good for: developers building transcription into their own product.

Several companies offer speech-to-text APIs trained for Indian languages, including code-mixed speech, and some can output English directly. You send audio, you get text back.

Limits: you write code to use them, and you handle everything around the text yourself: speaker names, summaries, storage and privacy.

Cost: pay per minute of audio.

4. A meeting notetaker that writes English notes

Good for: business calls and recordings where what you need is English notes you can act on.

This is what EchoBrief does. You either send the notetaker to a Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams call, or upload a recording (mp3, m4a, wav, mp4 and most other audio and video formats). EchoBrief transcribes it with a speech model built for Indian languages and code-mixed speech, translates to English as it goes, and gives you:

• an English transcript, with speaker names on calls the notetaker joined;
• a summary, decisions, action items and next steps;
• for sales calls, a deal card: budget, decision maker, timeline, objections and next step.

Every point links to the moment in the recording where it was said, so you can check it.

Limits: EchoBrief gives you English text, not a Hindi transcript in Devanagari. If you need the original Hindi words, use one of the options above. It is built for conversations, not for transcribing songs or films.

Cost: invite-only beta; plans from ₹799 a month. See pricing.

Which one handles Hinglish?

Real conversations rarely stay in one language. "Budget approved hai, but timeline next quarter ka hai" is one sentence in two languages. Tools that expect you to pick a single language tend to garble or drop the other one. Tools trained on code-mixed Indian speech handle it far better.

The only reliable test is your own audio. Take a two-minute clip that mixes Hindi and English the way your calls do, run it through two options, and read the results side by side.

Quick comparison

If your recordings are business calls, you can request access to the EchoBrief beta, or read more about Hinglish meeting transcription.