I love Descript and applaud the company and its team’s innovation. However, the biggest 3 failures I have observed are related to its Transcription Glossary. If you are unfamiliar with the term, according to Descript, its Transcription Glossary is like a word bank. (Transcription Glossaries also exist outside of Descript too, in other tools.) Fortunately, we can add hard-to-transcribe words in Descript’s Transcription Glossary, which helps make Descript’s transcriptions become more accurate and appropriate. Descript currently supports adding up to 30 difficult words or names to the glossary and the company encourages us to add them before transcribing our files. However, I have discovered 3 major failures with Descript’s Transcription Glossary that I’ll share with you.

Brands with numbers are prohibited in Descript’s Transcription Glossary

Imagine that we are transcribing a program including any of the following brand names or company names, as if they were so unusual.

• 21st Century Fox
• 23andMe
• 2Wire
• 3Com
• 3M
• 7-Eleven
• 7up
• A1 Steak Sauce
• Boeing 747
• Century 21
• Cloud9
• Forever 21
• Levi’s 501
• Motel 6

All brands with numbers are currently rejected by Descript’s Transcription Glossary.

Accent marks are prohibited in Descript’s Transcription Glossary

Imagine that we are transcribing a program including any of the following brand names or company names. We are currently out of luck, even if the program to be transcribed is in English.

• Bacardí
• CapicúaFM
• Déjà vu breakfast company
• El País
• elPeriódico
• Medéa
• Nescafé
• Nestlé
• Piña Colada
• Résumé writing service
• The Piñata Factory

In fact, the Descript error code incorrectly complains that any name that contains an accent mark has a «number», even though it doesn’t. This is especially ironic now that we can even have accented domain names which are bulletproof, even for those users who enter them without the accent mark, it appears like magic. To see how that can happen, visit AccentedDomains.com or DominiosTildados.com, which are services of my TecnoTur.LLC.

Descript’s Transcription Glossary is still off limits outside of English

Back in February of 2022, Descript proudly announced that it was supporting 22 languages (see Descript transcribes 22 languages including Castilian & Catalán). I personally have used Descript to transcribe countless recordings done in Castilian (castellano) and a few in English. They work quite well (except for the examples given earlier), I am sad to share that nearly three years after that wonderful announcement, Descript’s Transcription Glossary continues to be off limits when transcribing a recording in any language other than English.

That is evident in the above screenshot.

Conclusions

Descript, please correct these 3 (three) failures ASAP. I know you can! Once you have done it, please let me know so I can write a followup article and celebrate.

Lee este artículo en buen castellano

Glosario de transcripción Descript: 3 deficiencias

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FTC disclosure

Allan Tépper pays the official yearly rate for his Descript service. None of the listed companies has paid for this article. Video. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.