French Speech to Text
Convert French (Français) audio to text with AI. Fast, accurate, 10+ models.
Best Models for French
| Model | Provider | WER | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STT.ai Enhanced Best | STT.ai | 3.2% | Try it | |
| Whisper Large V3 | OpenAI | 4.2% | Try it | |
| Whisper Turbo | OpenAI | 5.1% | Try it | |
| NVIDIA Canary | NVIDIA | 3.5% | Try it | |
| SenseVoice | FunAudioLLM | 5.5% | Try it | |
| Distil-Whisper | Hugging Face | 5.8% | Try it | |
| Vosk | Alpha Cephei | 12.0% | Try it |
About French Transcription
French is spoken across five continents and is an official language in 29 countries. Our French speech recognition handles metropolitan French, Canadian French, and African French variants.
STT.ai provides state-of-the-art French speech recognition powered by multiple AI models. Whether you need to transcribe interviews, lectures, podcasts, or meetings in French, our platform automatically detects the language and selects the optimal model for the best accuracy.
How Accurate is French Transcription?
Accuracy for French transcription depends on audio quality, speaker clarity, background noise, and the model you choose. On clean audio with a single speaker, our best models achieve a Word Error Rate (WER) under 6% for French -- approaching human-level accuracy.
For the best results with French audio, we recommend:
- Clear audio -- minimize background noise and use a good microphone
- Single speaker segments -- enable speaker diarization for multi-speaker recordings
- Choose the right model -- NVIDIA Canary offers the lowest WER for supported languages, while Whisper Large V3 provides the broadest language coverage
- Specify the language -- while auto-detect works well, manually selecting French can improve accuracy slightly
Export Formats for French Transcripts
After transcribing your French audio, download the result in any of these formats:
TXT
Plain text transcript
SRT
Subtitles with timestamps
VTT
Web video captions
DOCX
Word document
JSON
Structured data with timestamps
PDF
Print-ready document
Frequently Asked Questions
Upload an audio or video file containing French (Français) to STT.ai or paste a URL. Select a model that supports French — for best results pick the one with the lowest WER on the table above — and click Transcribe.
Yes. STT.ai gives every visitor 600 free minutes/month, which includes French (310 million speakers worldwide). No signup required for your first file. Paid plans starting at $5/month unlock longer files and private transcripts.
French accuracy on clean audio reaches 93-96% with our best models. Numbers, proper nouns, and inflected forms are all handled. Clear audio with minimal background noise produces the best results.
The table above ranks the supported models for French by WER (lower is better). Whisper Large V3 has the broadest French coverage; NVIDIA Canary has the lowest WER on supported French variants; STT.ai Enhanced unifies both for paid plans.
Yes. French output includes punctuation (periods, commas, question marks) and proper casing. Numbers and titles follow French conventions. The transcript editor lets you tweak punctuation manually.
Yes. Speaker diarization is language-agnostic and works on French the same way it does on English. Each speaker is labeled (Speaker 1, Speaker 2, ...) and you can rename them in the editor after transcription.
Most French files are transcribed in under 5 minutes. A 1-hour French audio file typically takes 2-3 minutes with our fastest models, and slightly longer with the highest-accuracy models.
French files in MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG, MP4, MKV, MOV, WebM, AVI, and 10+ other formats all work. Output to TXT, SRT, VTT, DOCX, JSON, and PDF — all with French text intact.
Yes. French audio files are processed and deleted by default. Pro plans add client-side encryption — even if our database is breached, your transcripts are unreadable without your key. French data is never used for model training without explicit opt-in.
Yes. Export the transcript as SRT or VTT — both work with YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, and all major video platforms. Burn-subtitles tool overlays them onto video as hardsubs.
Yes. After transcribing French, the subtitle-translator tool can translate the SRT/VTT to any of 100+ target languages. Useful if your French content needs subtitles for a wider audience.
Yes. The REST API supports French via the language parameter (auto-detect is also available). Python and Node.js SDKs let you batch-transcribe French audio with full timestamps and speaker labels.
For French, the biggest accuracy variables are background noise, overlapping speakers, and accent strength. Use a good microphone, separate speakers when possible, and pick a model trained on the relevant dialect.