Speech to text · ಕನ್ನಡ

Kannada audio to text, free

Upload a voice note, a call recording or a video and get Kannada 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. Spoken Kannada stays spoken in the transcript (ಬರುತ್ತೆ, ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ), and English words such as order and check come back in Kannada script.

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

Upload a voice note, call recording or video in Kannada, 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 Kannada 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.

Kannada audio to text converter

Drop in an audio or video file and get Kannada text back in Kannada 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 Kannada, including English words in the middle of a sentence.

Free Kannada 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 Kannada, 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.

Kannada 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 Kannada.

Each sentence was read by Mitaali, 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.

Clean recordingReal output, 25 October 2026

What was said: ಹಲೋ, ನಿನ್ನೆ order ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು ಇನ್ನೂ ಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ. ಯಾವಾಗ ಬರುತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ check ಮಾಡಿ ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ?; Hello, what I ordered yesterday still hasn't come. Could you check and tell me when it will arrive?
What Valmiki STT returned, unedited: ಹಲೋ, ನಿನ್ನೆ ಆರ್ಡರ್ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು ಇನ್ನೂ ಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ. ಯಾವಾಗ ಬರುತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಚೆಕ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ?

Same transcript in both clean runs: word for word, with order and check written in Kannada script.

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

What was said: ಹಲೋ, ನಿನ್ನೆ order ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು ಇನ್ನೂ ಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ. ಯಾವಾಗ ಬರುತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ check ಮಾಡಿ ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ?; Hello, what I ordered yesterday still hasn't come. Could you check and tell me when it will arrive?
What Valmiki STT returned, unedited: ಹಲೋ, ನಿನ್ನೆ ಆರ್ಡರ್ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು ಇನ್ನೂ ಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ. ಯಾವಾಗ ಬರುತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಚೆಕ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ?

One of two phone-quality runs. The other was the same but for the comma after ಹಲೋ.

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 Kannada 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 Kannada

How Kannada speech comes out as text.

Written Kannada and spoken Kannada part ways in the verb. A formal text says ಬರುತ್ತದೆ (it will come) and ಹೇಳುತ್ತೀರಾ (will you tell); people on the phone say ಬರುತ್ತೆ and ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ. On our test sentence, Valmiki STT kept the spoken forms in all four runs, clean and 8 kHz, rather than correcting them into the written ones.

The English words in the sentence, order and check, came back in Kannada script as ಆರ್ಡರ್ and ಚೆಕ್, so the transcript reads as one Kannada sentence. Every run was word for word; the only difference was one missing comma.

Transcript script: Kannada script. Spoken forms are kept, and English words are written in Kannada script (ಆರ್ಡರ್, ಚೆಕ್).
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 ₹0.50 a minute (₹29.93 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

Bengaluru Kanglish, and Kannada from Dharwad to Mangaluru.

Bengaluru Kannada is full of English (Kanglish): ಆರ್ಡರ್, ಚೆಕ್, ಡೆಲಿವರಿ, often with Kannada endings on the English word. Valmiki STT handled our Kanglish sentence without a setting, writing the English words in Kannada script. If you would rather keep them in English letters, the uploader's Roman script tab writes the whole sentence in Latin letters.

North Karnataka Kannada (Dharwad, Hubballi, Kalaburagi) and coastal speech around Mangaluru have their own verb endings and words, and coastal speakers often switch to Tulu or Konkani, which are separate languages that Valmiki STT does not list. Our sample is Bengaluru-style speech, so test recordings from other regions.

Use cases

What people turn into Kannada text.

WhatsApp voice notes to Kannada text

Voice notes from family, an apartment association or a customer. Upload the .opus file and read the Kannada, or open the English tab for a colleague who does not read it.

YouTube videos to Kannada text

Kannada cooking channels, farming advice, devotional talks and film reviews. For your own channel, download the MP4 from YouTube Studio and use the SRT file as a start on Kannada captions.

Interviews and meetings

Interviews and meetings in Bengaluru and Mysuru offices, which move between Kannada and English. Upload parts of up to 10 minutes after a free sign-up and download a Word file.

Call recordings

Delivery and service calls, like the order question in our sample. Read what each caller said in Kannada instead of replaying the call; at volume, send recordings to the API.

Voice typing

How to voice-type in Kannada.

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 Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ) under Languages in its settings, then tap the microphone on the keyboard and speak.
2. iPhone
Add the Kannada keyboard in Settings, then General, Keyboard, Keyboards. If your iPhone offers dictation for Kannada, 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 Kannada is not offered there, save the voice note and upload it above.
4. Microsoft Word
Word's Dictate does not list Kannada (checked October 2026). Voice-type in Google Docs instead (Tools, then Voice typing, then Kannada) and download it as a Word file.
5. Windows
Windows 11 voice typing does not list Kannada (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

Kannada speech to text API.

Send a recording to POST /v1/transcribe and read the Kannada 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("kannada-call.wav", "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"])              # ಹಲೋ, ನಿನ್ನೆ ಆರ್ಡರ್ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದು ಇನ್ನೂ ಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ. ...
16print(result["duration_seconds"], "seconds of audio")

About ₹0.50 a minute (₹29.93 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

Kannada speech to text, answered.

Yes, for short files. The uploader on this page turns Kannada 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 Kannada 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 Kannada 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 Kannada transcript when you open the tab, and you can copy it or download it like the transcript. Check names, amounts and dates against the Kannada text, because a word misheard in Kannada carries into the English.

Yes. The uploader's Roman script tab shows the transcript in English letters, the way Kannada is often typed in chats. The API returns Kannada script, as it did in all four runs of our sample.

On our test sentence, word for word in all four runs, clean and 8 kHz, with the spoken forms kept. That is one short, clear sentence, not a benchmark; test recordings like yours, with background noise and your callers' accents.

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.

Spoken, on our test: ಬರುತ್ತೆ and ಹೇಳ್ತೀರಾ came back as said, not as the written ಬರುತ್ತದೆ and ಹೇಳುತ್ತೀರಾ.

Other languages, and the other direction.

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

Answering Kannada phone calls rather than transcribing them? See Kannada voice agents.

See speech to text in every language we have tested.

Turn your Kannada 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