speech-recognition

How to Convert Speech to Text in Python

This folder contains the original SpeechRecognition examples and a modern 2026 transcription script.

Modern script

speech_to_text_2026.py supports:

• OpenAI gpt-4o-transcribe / gpt-4o-mini-transcribe
• Faster-Whisper local/offline transcription
• Groq Whisper transcription
• long-audio chunking
• microphone recording
• SRT subtitle export

Install modern dependencies:

pip install -U openai faster-whisper groq sounddevice scipy

For audio/video conversion and long-file chunking, install FFmpeg too.

Examples:

# Local/offline transcription
python speech_to_text_2026.py 16-122828-0002.wav --engine faster-whisper --model small --language en

# OpenAI transcription; requires OPENAI_API_KEY
python speech_to_text_2026.py meeting.mp3 --engine openai --language en

# Cheaper OpenAI model
python speech_to_text_2026.py meeting.mp3 --engine openai --model gpt-4o-mini-transcribe --language en

# Groq Whisper; requires GROQ_API_KEY
python speech_to_text_2026.py meeting.mp3 --engine groq --language en

# Generate subtitles locally
python speech_to_text_2026.py video.mp4 --engine faster-whisper --model large-v3 --srt captions.srt

# Record 8 seconds from the microphone, then transcribe
python speech_to_text_2026.py --record 8 --engine faster-whisper --model small --language en

Legacy examples

To run the older examples:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Recognize the text of an audio file named 16-122828-0002.wav:

python recognizer.py 16-122828-0002.wav

Output:

I believe you're just talking nonsense

Recognize text from your microphone after talking for 5 seconds:

python live_recognizer.py 5