Where Chinese audio transcription is used
- Mandarin podcasts, news broadcasts, and lecture content
- Cross-border e-commerce, customer support, and B2B sales calls
- Chinese-language-learning material and HSK-prep audio
- Mainland/Taiwan/Hong Kong business meetings (note: Cantonese has separate support)
Challenges of transcribing Chinese audio
- Tonal ambiguity — Mandarin has 4 tones plus neutral; same syllable can mean entirely different things ("mā" / "má" / "mǎ" / "mà") — the model uses context to disambiguate
- Code-switching with English is extremely common in tech, finance, and academic content — well-handled but may slow accuracy
- Traditional vs Simplified character output — the model defaults to Simplified, but Traditional is also supported for Taiwan/HK content
Tips for best results
- For Taiwan content, expect Simplified characters in output — Traditional conversion is a manual post-step if needed
- Numbers and addresses in Mandarin are well-transcribed ("北京市朝阳区" comes out as a single string, not split)
- Tonal ambiguity rarely causes real errors in continuous speech — context handles it; isolated syllables (e.g., a single word spoken out of context) are the exception
Supported audio formats
Upload any audio file in mp3, mp4, wav, m4a, ogg, flac, webm format, up to 25 MB. Files are processed securely and never stored on our servers.
Frequently asked questions
- Does it support Cantonese?
- No — Cantonese is a separate language in our model. AiScribe's default Chinese support is for Mandarin. Cantonese audio will be transcribed with significantly reduced accuracy, and the output will be in Mandarin, not Cantonese-specific characters.
- Simplified or Traditional characters?
- Output defaults to Simplified Chinese characters. For Traditional (Taiwan/HK), the model can produce Traditional output for audio that's clearly Taiwanese or Hong Kong Mandarin. To force Traditional, post-process the output.
- How accurate is it for fast conversational Mandarin?
- Clean conversational Mandarin is transcribed at ~95% accuracy. Fast, casual speech with strong regional accent (e.g., Sichuanese-influenced Mandarin) drops to ~85%.
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