# Audio Transcription - quickstart

## About the Audio Transcriptions API

The Audio Transcriptions API provides a dedicated speech-to-text endpoint for uploaded audio files.
It features:

- Performant audio transcription with low word error rate (WER)
- A simple multipart upload flow
- Multilingual support

::::::steps{titleSize="h2"}
:::step{title="Prerequisites"}
* [Free trial key](https://dashboard.cohere.com/api-keys) saved under a `TRIAL_KEY` environment variable
:::

:::step{title="Setting up the audio file"}
The Audio Transcriptions endpoint accepts FLAC, MP3, MPEG, MPGA, OGG, and WAV files of 25MB or less.
For this quickstart, we'll use the following WAV example.

If you don't have an audio file already, download the example to follow along.
:::

:::::step{title="Passing the audio file"}
Use the following code to pass the audio file to the Audio Transcription endpoint.

::::tabs
:::tab{title="curl"}
```curl
curl -X POST "https://api.cohere.com/v2/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRIAL_KEY" \
  -F "model=cohere-transcribe-03-2026" \
  -F "language=en" \
  -F "file=@./transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav" \
```

For Cohere Transcribe Arabic, use the following snippet. Note: the sample audio in this quickstart is in English, so `language` is set to `en`. For audio files in which the predominant language is Arabic, make sure to set `language` to `ar`.

```curl
curl -X POST "https://api.cohere.com/v2/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRIAL_KEY" \
  -F "model=cohere-transcribe-arabic-07-2026" \
  -F "language=en" \
  -F "file=@./transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav" \
```
:::

:::tab{title="Python"}
Install the latest Cohere SDK.

```bash
pip -U install cohere
```

Import the `ClientV2` class, instantiate it, and then use its `create` method to pass the audio file.

```python
from cohere import ClientV2
import os

api_key = os.environ["TRIAL_KEY"]
client = ClientV2(api_key)

with open("transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav", "rb") as f:
    response = client.audio.transcriptions.create(
        model="cohere-transcribe-03-2026", language="en", file=f
    )

print(response)
```

For those using Cohere Transcribe Arabic, this step becomes the following. Note: the sample audio in this quickstart is in English, so `language` is set to `en`. For audio files in which the predominant language is Arabic, make sure to set `language` to `ar`.

```python
from cohere import ClientV2
import os

api_key = os.environ["TRIAL_KEY"]
client = ClientV2(api_key)

with open("transcribe-model-sample-derrida-mashup.wav", "rb") as f:
    response = client.audio.transcriptions.create(
        model="cohere-transcribe-arabic-07-2026",
        language="en",
        file=f,
    )

print(response)
```
:::
::::
:::::

:::::step{title="Receiving the response"}
It should return a response similar to the following.

::::tabs
:::tab{title="curl"}
```bash
{"text":"I speak only one language, and it's not my own, but the poet is a man of metaphor."} 
```
:::

:::tab{title="Python"}
```bash
text="I speak only one language, and it's not my own, but the poet is a man of metaphor."
```
:::
::::
:::::
::::::

## Further Resources

- [Cohere Transcribe model card](/guides/models-transcribe)
- [Cohere Transcribe Arabic model card](/guides/models-transcribe-arabic)
- [Audio Transcriptions API reference documentation](/api)
- [Jupyter notebook](https://github.com/cohere-ai/cohere-developer-experience/blob/main/notebooks/guides/audio/audio_transcription.ipynb)

## Related pages

- [Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) - quickstart](./cohere-platform-v2-get-started-quickstart-rag-quickstart.md)
- [Reranking - quickstart](./cohere-platform-v2-get-started-quickstart-reranking-quickstart.md)
- [Semantic search - quickstart](./cohere-platform-v2-get-started-quickstart-sem-search-quickstart.md)
- [Text generation - quickstart](./cohere-platform-v2-get-started-quickstart-text-gen-quickstart.md)
- [Tool use & agents - quickstart](./cohere-platform-v2-get-started-quickstart-tool-use-quickstart.md)
- [Document Parsing - quickstart](./cohere-platform-v2-get-started-quickstart-parse-quickstart.md)

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