Speech to text · الخليجي

Gulf Arabic audio to text, free

Upload a voice note, a call recording or a video and get Gulf Arabic text back. It is free for files up to 2 minutes without an account (3 files a day); longer files need a free account. Download the result as text, Word or subtitles. Khaleeji words stay Khaleeji in the transcript (أبي, حقي, باكر), and English words such as booking and location come back in Arabic letters.

MP3, M4A, WAV, WhatsApp .opus, MP4 · up to 2 min free

Upload a voice note, call recording or video in Gulf Arabic, or record yourself. Free up to 2 minutes a file, 3 files a day, no account.

Valmiki STT

Your transcript appears here, exactly as Valmiki returns it.

Upload MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, FLAC, AMR, a WhatsApp voice note (.opus or .ogg) or an MP4 or MOV video, or record up to 2 minutes from your microphone. Switch between Arabic script, Roman script and an English translation (made by Vyas, our language model, when you open the tab), then copy the text or download TXT or DOCX, plus SRT subtitles for uploaded files. No account needed for files up to 2 minutes, 3 a day.

Gulf Arabic audio to text converter

Drop in an audio or video file and get Gulf Arabic text back in Arabic script. It reads MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, FLAC and AMR audio, WhatsApp voice notes (.opus and .ogg) and MP4 or MOV video, and the file is decoded on our server, so it works the same on an iPhone. You can also record from your microphone. There is no language menu: Valmiki STT, the speech recognition model behind it, works out that the speech is Gulf Arabic, including English words in the middle of a sentence.

Free Gulf Arabic speech to text: what you get

Files up to 2 minutes, 3 a day on each device, with no account.
With a free account, files up to 10 minutes and 10 MB each in the dashboard or the API, billed by the second.
The transcript in Gulf Arabic, in Roman (English) letters, and translated into English.
Copy the text or download plain text (TXT) or Word (DOCX), and subtitles (SRT) for uploaded files.

Gulf Arabic voice to text, saved as text, Word or subtitles

Copy the transcript, or download it as a TXT file or a Word document. For an uploaded file you also get an SRT subtitle file to load into YouTube Studio or a video editor. Long recordings after sign-up cost $0.00525 per minute of audio, billed by the second, the same for every language.

Real transcripts

What Valmiki STT returned for Gulf Arabic.

Each sentence was read by Tariq, a Pāṇini TTS voice, and sent to Valmiki STT as a file: twice as the clean recording and twice as an 8 kHz phone-quality copy (squeezed down to 8 kHz and back, the way a phone line does it). The transcripts are shown exactly as they came back, errors included. Tested 25 October 2026. These are synthetic clips, not recorded calls.

Phone quality (8 kHz)Real output, 25 October 2026

What was said: هلا، أبي أأكد الحجز حقي باكر الساعة خمس العصر، وممكن ترسلون لي اللوكيشن على الواتساب؟; Hi, I want to confirm my booking for tomorrow at five in the afternoon, and could you send me the location on WhatsApp?
What Valmiki STT returned, unedited: هلا، أبي أأكد الحجز حقي باكر الساعة 5 العصر، وممكن ترسلون لي اللوكيشن على الواتساب؟

Same transcript in both phone-quality runs: every word right, with the time written as the digit 5.

Clean recordingReal output, 25 October 2026

What was said: هلا، أبي أأكد الحجز حقي باكر الساعة خمس العصر، وممكن ترسلون لي اللوكيشن على الواتساب؟; Hi, I want to confirm my booking for tomorrow at five in the afternoon, and could you send me the location on WhatsApp?
What Valmiki STT returned, unedited: هلا، أبي أكد الحجز حقي بكرة الساعة 5 العصر، وممكن ترسلون لي اللوكيشن على الواتساب؟

One of two clean runs. It wrote باكر as بكرة and أأكد as أكد. The other clean run kept باكر and خمس as spoken.

Gulf Arabic and English mixed, phone quality (8 kHz)Real output, 25 October 2026

What was said: هلا، أبي أأكد الـ booking حقي باكر الساعة خمس، وممكن ترسلون لي الـ location على الواتساب؟; Hi, I want to confirm my booking for tomorrow at five in the afternoon, and could you send me the location on WhatsApp?
What Valmiki STT returned, unedited: هلا، أبي أكد البوكينج حقي بكرة الساعة خمس، وممكن ترسلون لي اللوكيشن على الواتساب؟

One of two phone-quality runs. The English words came back in Arabic letters (البوكينج, اللوكيشن); the other heard أبي as أبا. Both clean runs wrote البوكينق. All four wrote باكر as بكرة.

How to judge the accuracy yourself

No public benchmark includes Valmiki STT, so we do not publish a table comparing it with other services. Judge it on audio like yours instead. Play each clip above and compare what was said with what came back, word by word. Then upload a recording of your own that is close to what you will really transcribe: the same kind of phone line or microphone, the same speakers, the same mix of Gulf Arabic and English. Count the words that changed meaning, not the spelling variants, and try the 8 kHz case if your audio comes from calls.

About Gulf Arabic

How Gulf Arabic speech comes out as text.

Gulf callers do not speak Fusha. They say أبي (I want), حقي (my), باكر (tomorrow) and ترسلون (you send, polite plural). On our test sentence, Valmiki STT kept أبي, حقي and ترسلون in every run. The two phone-quality runs were word for word; the clean runs were the ones that drifted, writing باكر as بكرة and the time خمس (five) as the digit 5.

Gulf speech with English words is the everyday case for bookings and deliveries, and the one we watched most closely, because an earlier test of the same sentence on our streaming path, on 24 October, came back as a short English paraphrase. Sent as a file on 25 October, all four runs returned the Arabic sentence with booking and location written in Arabic letters, as البوكينق or البوكينج and اللوكيشن. Test your own mixed recordings both ways if you plan to stream.

Transcript script: Arabic script. English words spoken inside Gulf Arabic come back in Arabic letters (البوكينج, اللوكيشن).
Language setting: None. Valmiki STT detects the spoken language, including switches mid-sentence.
Price after the free files: $0.00525 per minute of audio, billed by the second.
In local currency: About AED 0.019 a minute (AED 1.157 an hour of audio); SAR 0.020 a minute (SAR 1.181 an hour of audio), at exchange rates from open.er-api.com, 25 October 2026.
Files: MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, FLAC, AMR, WhatsApp .opus and .ogg, and MP4 or MOV video in the uploader. The API takes WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, Opus, WebM, AAC and M4A files up to 10 MB and 10 minutes.

Dialects and mixing

Emirati, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Bahraini speech, and English in between.

Gulf Arabic runs from Kuwait to the Emirates, with local differences: in Kuwait and the Emirates ج often becomes y, ك can become ch (چذي), and ق is a hard g (قهوة as gahwa). Valmiki STT writes these in standard letters, not in the چ and گ some Gulf writers use. Our test voice spoke a general Khaleeji; test recordings from your own country.

In Dubai, Doha and Kuwait City, English nouns sit inside Arabic sentences all day: البوكنج, الأوفر, الفيزا, اللوكيشن. Valmiki STT writes them in Arabic letters, and the spelling can vary between runs (البوكينق and البوكينج). If you search transcripts for a product name, search for both spellings, or use the uploader's Roman script tab.

Use cases

What people turn into Gulf Arabic text.

WhatsApp voice notes to Gulf Arabic text

Voice notes from a driver, a salon, a landlord or family. Upload the .opus file and read the Khaleeji text, or open the English tab for a colleague who does not read Arabic.

YouTube videos to Gulf Arabic text

Gulf podcasts, majlis talks and vlogs. For your own channel, download the MP4 from YouTube Studio and use the SRT file as a start on Arabic captions.

Interviews and meetings

Interviews and meetings in Gulf offices that move between Arabic and English. Upload parts of up to 10 minutes after a free sign-up and download a Word file.

Call recordings

Booking and delivery calls for clinics, salons and property teams in the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, like our sample. Read the date and time each caller confirmed instead of replaying the call.

Voice typing

How to voice-type in Gulf Arabic.

Voice typing is a different job from transcribing a file: you speak and the words appear as you go. Sonex Labs has no voice-typing keyboard or app, so for that, use the tools already on your phone or computer.

1. Android phone (Gboard)
Install Gboard, add Arabic under Languages in its settings and choose your country (the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain or Oman where listed), then tap the microphone on the keyboard.
2. iPhone
Add the Arabic keyboard in Settings, then General, Keyboard, Keyboards. If your iPhone offers dictation for Arabic, a microphone key appears on that keyboard.
3. WhatsApp
To type a message by voice, tap the microphone on your keyboard, not the voice-note button in WhatsApp; the keyboard writes the words into the chat box. WhatsApp can also show a transcript under a received voice message in some languages (Settings, then Chats, then Voice message transcripts). If Gulf Arabic is not offered there, save the voice note and upload it above.
4. Microsoft Word
Word's Dictate lists Arabic (Bahrain) as a preview language, but not the UAE, Kuwait or Qatar (checked October 2026). Google Docs voice typing has the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
5. Windows
Windows 11 voice typing does not list Arabic (checked October 2026). On a PC, use Google Docs voice typing in Chrome or Edge.

For recordings longer than a minute, use the uploader above.

API

Gulf Arabic speech to text API.

Send a recording to POST /v1/transcribe and read the Gulf Arabic text from the reply. There is no language parameter. $0.00525 per minute of audio, billed by the second.

transcribe.py

1# pip install requests
2import requests
3
4with open("khaleeji-voice-note.ogg", "rb") as audio:
5    r = requests.post(
6        "https://api.sonexlabs.com/v1/transcribe",
7        headers={
8            "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY",
9            "Content-Type": "audio/wav",   # audio/mpeg, audio/ogg (WhatsApp notes), audio/mp4 ...
10        },
11        data=audio,
12    )
13r.raise_for_status()
14result = r.json()
15print(result["text"])              # هلا، أبي أأكد الحجز حقي باكر الساعة 5 العصر ...
16print(result["duration_seconds"], "seconds of audio")

About AED 0.019 a minute (AED 1.157 an hour of audio); SAR 0.020 a minute (SAR 1.181 an hour of audio), at exchange rates from open.er-api.com, 25 October 2026. Live streaming, limits and error codes are on the speech to text API page, and plans are on pricing.

FAQ

Gulf Arabic speech to text, answered.

Yes, for short files. The uploader on this page turns Gulf Arabic audio into text with no account for files up to 2 minutes, 3 files a day. For longer files, sign up free and transcribe files of up to 10 minutes and 10 MB each in the dashboard or through the API; that costs $0.00525 a minute, billed by the second, so a 10-minute recording costs about 5.25 US cents.

There is no app to install. The uploader works in the browser on a phone too: open this page on Android or iPhone, pick a voice note, recording or video from your files, and read the Gulf Arabic text. For typing by voice as you speak, use your phone keyboard's microphone, as described in the voice-typing steps above.

Yes. It runs in a current browser: Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari on a Windows PC or a Mac, and Safari or Chrome on an iPhone or Android phone. Files are decoded on our server, so an iPhone voice memo, a WhatsApp .opus note or a MOV video works the same as on a PC. There is nothing to install.

Long-press the voice note in WhatsApp and share or export it to your files; on Android, received voice notes are also kept as .opus files in WhatsApp's media folder. Upload the .opus or .ogg file here and the Gulf Arabic text appears. Notes up to 2 minutes need no account.

Upload the audio, then open the English tab above the transcript. Vyas, our language model, translates the Gulf Arabic transcript when you open the tab, and you can copy it or download it like the transcript. Check names, amounts and dates against the Gulf Arabic text, because a word misheard in Gulf Arabic carries into the English.

Yes, in the uploader's Roman script tab, which writes the transcript in Latin letters. It is not guaranteed to match the Arabizi people type in chats, so check it. The API returns Arabic script, with English words in Arabic letters.

On our tests, good: the plain Gulf sentence was word for word on phone-quality audio, and the mixed Gulf and English sentence kept its meaning in every run, with English written in Arabic letters. Clean runs sometimes swapped باكر for بكرة. A few sentences are not a benchmark; test recordings like yours.

Without an account, 2 minutes per file and 3 files a day. With a free account, up to 10 minutes and 10 MB per audio file in the dashboard or the API, billed by the second. For anything longer, split the recording into parts of 10 minutes or less and send each one; the API takes the same limit.

In our 25 October file test, yes: all four runs kept the Arabic and wrote booking and location in Arabic letters. An earlier streaming test of the same sentence failed, so test your own mixed audio, especially for live streaming.

Other languages, and the other direction.

Need the reverse? Turn Gulf Arabic text into speech with Pāṇini TTS, free to try without an account.

See speech to text in every language we have tested.

Turn your Gulf Arabic audio into text.

Free for files up to 2 minutes without an account. Longer files, with a free account: $0.00525 per minute of audio, billed by the second.

Upload a file Valmiki STT API