Transcript Came Out in the Wrong Language

If a Hedy transcript comes out in the wrong language, the most common cause is the meeting language setting being out of sync with what was actually spoken. The fix is in Settings > Profile > Language Preferences > Meeting/Class Language. The behavior also depends on which speech recognition provider you’re using — some auto-detect language, while the default (local Whisper) does not.

Where the Language Setting Lives

Hedy has one app-level language setting for transcription — Meeting/Class Language — that the default speech recognition provider (local Whisper) uses directly. Nemotron Multilingual also reads it unless you turn on its auto-detect option. Cloud providers (Deepgram, OpenAI) have their own per-provider language settings and may override or ignore the app-level one.

1. Open Hedy’s Settings

2. Go to the Profile tab

3. Find Language Preferences

4. Set Meeting/Class Language to the language you’ll actually be speaking

You can also change this from the session-start screen — there’s a speech recognition language dropdown there. Note that changing it on the session-start screen persists the change to your account, so the next session will use the new language too. There is no separate “this session only” override.

If you have never explicitly picked a language, Hedy defaults to the language you chose during onboarding (suggested from your device locale), or English if nothing was set.

Why This Depends on Your Speech Recognition Provider

Hedy supports several speech recognition providers, local and cloud, and they handle language differently. You can see and change your active provider at Settings > Speech & AI > Speech Recognition Options.

If you’re on the default Whisper provider, the Meeting/Class Language must match what’s being spoken — this catches a lot of wrong-language reports. If you’re on Nemotron Multilingual, check that Auto-detect language is off and the Meeting/Class Language is right; for meetings held entirely in English, Nemotron English Only is the safer choice because it has no other language to switch to. If you’re on Deepgram or OpenAI in auto-detect mode, language is usually figured out from the audio — but you can still force a specific language in the provider’s own settings if it’s getting it wrong.

Common Scenarios

“My transcript is in English but I spoke German.” You’re likely on local Whisper (the default) or Nemotron Multilingual with Meeting/Class Language set to English. Switch the language in Settings > Profile > Language Preferences. If you’re on Nemotron English Only, it can only produce English; switch to Nemotron Multilingual or Whisper for other languages.

“I speak two languages in the same meeting and only one gets transcribed correctly.” Whisper assumes a single language for the whole session. Mixing languages within one meeting is the hardest case for any engine. For the most reliable results, switch to Deepgram (with multi language setting) or OpenAI (auto-detect), both of which require your own API key. If you’d rather stay on-device, Nemotron’s Multilingual mode covers a broad set of languages, though it still works best when a single language is spoken at a time.

“Place names and proper nouns are wrong, but the language is right.” That’s a vocabulary issue, not a language issue. See Fix Poor Transcription Quality and the Custom Vocabulary guide.

“The transcript switched to a different language or alphabet partway through, even though we kept speaking the same language.” This is the Nemotron Multilingual engine drifting to a similar-sounding language mid-session; accented speech makes it more likely. Make sure Auto-detect language is off and the Meeting/Class Language matches what was spoken. If it happens again, or the meeting is entirely in English, switch to Nemotron English Only (local), which cannot produce any other language. The finished transcript won’t change, but the next session will use the new setting.

“I switched languages mid-session and the new language isn’t being picked up.” Behavior depends on the provider. Local Whisper (the default) re-reads the Meeting/Class Language for each transcription request, so changes mid-session can take effect on subsequent audio. Cloud providers (Deepgram, OpenAI) lock the language at the start of the WebSocket session — changes apply only to the next session. For consistent results regardless of provider, end the current session and start a new one after changing the language.

Languages Hedy Supports

The full list of meeting languages Hedy supports (on desktop):

English, Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog/Filipino, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese Mandarin, Chinese Cantonese.

On iPhone, iPad, and Android, the list is the same except Arabic, Hindi, and Thai are not available.

Hedy’s App Language vs. Meeting Language

Two different settings, easy to confuse:

• App Language — the language of Hedy’s user interface (buttons, menus, settings). Set in your Hedy app settings.

• Meeting/Class Language — the language Hedy expects you to speak during sessions. This is what affects transcription.

Changing one doesn’t change the other. You can have Hedy’s UI in English and your Meeting Language in Spanish.

Related Articles

• Fix Poor Transcription Quality — for accuracy issues even when the language is right

• Speech Recognition Providers in Hedy — the full breakdown of each provider

• Custom Vocabulary Guide — for proper-noun and jargon accuracy

Still having trouble? Contact us through the chat widget with the language you were speaking, the language you got in the transcript, and which speech recognition provider you’re using.