5 tricks to manage a foreign accent transcription audio

It is evident that as a transcriptionist, you need to transcribe audio files of your own as well as of a foreign accent. Dealing with own accent files may be easy but you must be aware of the tricks to handle a foreign accent transcription audio. All foreign accent transcription audio is not going to be of the same quality. A foreign accent transcription audio can be recorded in a professional sound studio where all the speakers can be heard, while another will make you feel that the speaker is speaking standing 10 feet away from the recording device. As a transcriptionist, the later example will make your job extremely difficult. To solve this problem we have come up with 5 tricks to manage a foreign accent transcription audio.

1.       Repeated Listening: One of the best ways to deal with a foreign accent transcription audio is to listen to that audio repeatedly for a couple of times. This will slowly help you in figuring out the speaker’s accent and what exactly he is speaking. If you are transcribing a long file you can understand them the longer you are doing the file. This will make things easier.  

2.       Slowing down the speech: Another trick that can be used to manage any foreign accent transcription audio is to slow down the speech. This can be beneficial to you in a couple of ways, Firstly, this will help you in hearing the words clearly and secondly slowing down the audio transcription files can sometimes can help you hear through the background noise as well.

3.       Enhance your listening skills: You can be an excellent speaker, however, have difficulties in figuring out not more than a fraction of what a foreign speaker is speaking. Speech is a series of connected words spoken together and it can be really difficult for an untrained ear to figure that out easily if the speaker is speaking fast. The only solution here to handle a foreign accent transcription audio is to enhance your listening skills.

4.       Using Speech Accent Archives: Speech accent archives present a set of samples of speech from a variety of language backgrounds and it helps to transcribe a heavy foreign accent transcription audio more easily. Figure out which country the speaker is from. By this, you can narrow down the accent and identify those words that are pronounced differently from a native English speaker.

5.       Keep some extra time: Keeping some extra time will always help you deal with a tough foreign accent transcription audio. Divide your time in such a way that you have more time on your hands than you possibly need. In case things don’t do according to plan & you are facing difficulty in transcribing a file, this extra time can be used a safety net.

There are many tricks which can be taken into consideration to manage a foreign accent transcription audio. However, you can take account of these tricks as well because they will make your transcription work easier.