Transcribing a multilingual meeting: what works and what breaks

You have just finished a two-hour meeting. You open the transcript and find that some passages are in the wrong language, that some words are hard to make sense of, and that the summary mixes French and English.

That is the kind of problem that can wipe out the whole point of automatic transcription.

A multilingual meeting is harder to transcribe than one where everybody speaks the same language. A person can switch from French to English mid-sentence, several participants can each speak their own language, or the meeting can be held in French while the summary has to be sent in Italian.

And above all, the language of the transcript should not be confused with the language of the summary.

You can have a correct transcript in French and get a summary in English. Conversely, translating the summary will never fix a transcript that misheard the conversation.

To avoid unpleasant surprises, you therefore have to look at the whole chain: the meeting has to be recorded properly, the conversation transcribed properly, and the summary produced in the right language.

That is where the quality of a multilingual meeting is really decided.

What counts as a multilingual meeting?

Not all meetings with several languages look alike.

In some cases, several languages are used during the same conversation. A person can speak French, then switch to Dutch or English a few seconds later.

In others, each participant speaks their own language. One meeting can bring together people speaking French, English and Dutch.

And then there is a third case, a very common one: the meeting takes place in one language, but the summary has to be written in another.

These situations do not raise exactly the same problems.

Why this changes everything

Language comes into play at several points in a meeting.

First, what is said has to be understood correctly. Then it has to be transcribed in the right language. Finally, the summary has to be produced in the language its reader expects.

A setting that improves the transcript therefore does not necessarily change the language of the summary.

And translating the summary cannot repair a transcript that was already poor.

What breaks, in practice

The language that changes mid-conversation

This is probably the most visible problem.

When a speaker switches from one language to another, automatic detection can get it wrong. You then end up with words assigned to the wrong language, or with a sentence that becomes hard to follow.

In January, a transcript reported by a user mixed ten languages in a single sentence while the person was speaking Dutch.

In April, another summary contained passages in Spanish and English although the meeting had been held entirely in French.

In both cases, this is not simply a transcription mistake. The tool did not correctly identify the language being spoken.

The summary arrives in the wrong language

That is something else again.

The transcript can be correct while the summary is generated in a language that was not intended.

In January, two companies reported that their summaries were arriving in English in two different CRMs while their meetings were held in French.

In May, the request was different: the user wanted their summaries in Italian rather than in English.

The problem is particularly awkward when the summary is sent automatically to another tool. You may only discover the error when the document lands in your CRM.

Proper nouns

Proper nouns are another sensitive point.

A name mistranscribed once can be corrected. The same name mistranscribed in every meeting, much less so.

In February, a user reported that a Flemish family name was systematically getting mangled.

This kind of error looks minor, but when it involves the name of a client, a company or a contact, it quickly becomes tiresome to correct.

Quality also depends on the channel

Language does not explain everything.

Transcript quality can also vary depending on how the meeting is recorded.

In February, a company reported a drop in quality on its Dutch-language meetings held in one specific video conferencing tool. It had already run into quality problems with the transcription from its phone system.

A transcript that works well in French on one channel is therefore no guarantee of the same result in Dutch on another.

If one language or one channel matters particularly to you, test them together.

How do you set the language before the meeting?

The right time to set the language is before the meeting.

Once the transcript has been produced, settings will not make the errors already in it disappear.

The multilingual setting

The setting sits in the meeting or account parameters.

You still have to know where to find it and what to enter.

In January, a user had enabled the multilingual call option without finding where to specify the expected languages.

So if you are planning a meeting in two languages, check the setting before the appointment. It is not the moment to go looking for the feature while participants are already connected.

Custom vocabulary

Proper nouns, company names, technical terms and acronyms deserve particular attention.

Custom vocabulary lets you add the terms that are regularly mistranscribed.

In May, a user explained that when a word was mistranscribed, they reported it to the administrator, who could then correct it for future transcripts.

This is particularly useful for words that come back from one meeting to the next.

The first meeting can in fact serve to spot the terms that cause trouble. Someone then has to take the time to keep that list up to date.

What cannot be set

One tricky case remains: the speaker who changes language in the middle of a sentence.

There is no way to know in advance exactly when they will move from French to English, or from French to Dutch.

In that case, simply plan for a review. If your team holds this kind of meeting regularly, it is better to build that step into the process from the start.

Translating the summary, not just the transcript

This is an important distinction: translating the conversation and translating the document you are going to send to the client are not the same thing.

The transcript mainly serves as raw material. The summary and the tasks are usually what actually gets passed on to a team, a client or a committee.

That is precisely what emerges from some user requests.

In January, one of them explained that translating the transcript already existed, but that their need was mostly about the summary and the tasks.

In March, another request concerned external sharing of a transcript available in several languages.

The underlying need is therefore fairly simple: the document has to be in the language of the person who will read it.

If the meeting is in French but the summary has to be read by an Italian team, transcribing French correctly only solves part of the problem.

Dutch, and why it decides matters in Belgium

Dutch is a good way to understand why you should look at actual quality rather than simply count the number of languages advertised.

In April, an organisation explained that it had chosen a Belgian vendor partly because it was a local partner that spoke their language.

That same month, a Dutch-speaking prospect explained that they had run into difficulties with other tools during their meetings in Dutch. Quality in that language was clearly one of their selection criteria.

In March, a company was using the free transcription built into its video conferencing tool. It had eventually stopped using it because the result was too poor to be of any use.

So if you work regularly in Dutch, do not settle for checking that the language appears in the list of supported languages. Run a real test.

Use your own vocabulary, your own contacts and the video conferencing tool you use every day.

That tells you far more than a list of languages on a marketing page.

How do you prepare a multilingual meeting with Leexi?

1. Declare the expected languages

In the settings, indicate the languages that will be used during the meeting.

If the meeting is bilingual, do not configure it as a meeting held entirely in French or entirely in English.

2. Add the important vocabulary

Add the names of participants, company names, technical terms and acronyms that risk being mistranscribed.

That will save you from finding the same errors in every new meeting.

3. Choose the language of the summary

The language of the summary is independent of the language spoken during the meeting.

Choose it based on the person who will actually read the document.

4. Check the first meeting

For your first multilingual meeting, read the transcript and the summary in full.

You will quickly see whether language detection is working correctly and which terms deserve to be added to the custom vocabulary.

5. Correct the vocabulary

When a term keeps coming back mistranscribed, report it to the administrator so it can be added to the custom vocabulary.

The correction can then be used for later meetings.

6. Check what reaches the other tools

If the summary is sent to a CRM or another tool, check the result there too.

A correct configuration in the transcription tool does not necessarily guarantee that the document will appear as expected in the destination tool.

What mistakes should you avoid?

1. Declaring one language when the meeting uses several

If two languages are used during the meeting, both have to be taken into account.

Otherwise part of the conversation risks being misread.

2. Looking for the multilingual setting at the last minute

Do it before the meeting.

The setting exists, but it may not be obvious to find. One user ran into exactly that while preparing a multilingual call.

3. Leaving the summary language on its default

The language spoken during the meeting is not necessarily the one the summary has to be delivered in.

Two companies found their summaries in English in their CRM although their meetings were held in French.

4. Correcting a proper noun without adding it to the vocabulary

If the same name is mistranscribed in every meeting, correcting it by hand each time is not a solution.

Add it to the custom vocabulary so the error stops repeating.

5. Confusing translating the transcript with translating the summary

These are two different things.

Translating the transcript may be available while your real need concerns the summary and the tasks.

So test the final output.

6. Testing only with a meeting in French

A transcript that works well in French tells you nothing about the other languages.

If you have a problem in Dutch, test Dutch. If your meetings are bilingual, test both languages.

What difficulties do users actually run into?

The subject comes up regularly in conversations with users, yet it generates relatively few direct support requests.

Between January and June 2026, 1,141 requests were received by Leexi support, of which 6 explicitly concern the language of the transcript or the summary.

Over the same period, the subject appears in more than 500 demonstration meetings and customer conversations, including 191 where the customer raises it themselves.

The gap between those two figures is telling: language looks above all like a question prospects ask when choosing or evaluating the tool, far less like a subject that later drives them to contact support.

That obviously does not mean the problem does not exist. A transcript that is poor enough may simply lead the user to abandon the feature.

So the right question is not simply:

"How many languages does this tool support?"

You should rather check which language is spoken, how it is transcribed, in which language the summary arrives and who is going to review it.

Multilingual meetings: what to remember

Before your first meeting in two languages, check these six points:

• Declared languages: are the languages used properly indicated in the settings?
• Vocabulary: have proper nouns and business terms been added?
• Summary language: does it match the person who will read it?
• Destination: if the summary goes to another tool, is the language still correct there?
• Review: does someone check the first transcript in full?
• Test: have you tested the tool in the language that actually gives you trouble?

And one question remains to be settled internally:

Who corrects mistranscribed terms, and who keeps the vocabulary up to date?

Frequently asked questions

What happens if two languages are spoken in the same meeting?

Automatic detection has to identify the language being used as the conversation unfolds. It can hesitate when speakers switch regularly from one language to another.

One user, for instance, reported a transcript that mixed several languages within a single sentence.

The multilingual setting helps you prepare the meeting, but a review remains necessary when language switches are frequent.

In which language does the summary arrive?

That is a setting separate from the language spoken during the meeting.

The summary can therefore be requested in a language other than the one used during the exchange.

This matters particularly when the document is then sent automatically to another tool. That is often the moment when you discover the configured language was not the expected one.

Can you get the summary and the tasks translated?

Translating the transcript exists.

Translating the summary and the tasks, on the other hand, is among the requests users have been making since January.

If your need depends on that capability, check its current status with Leexi before building your process around it.

How do you correct a mistranscribed proper noun?

Custom vocabulary is designed for this kind of problem.

When a word is regularly mistranscribed, it can be reported to the administrator, who then adds it to the vocabulary.

The correction applies to later transcripts, not to those already produced.

Is quality the same in every language?

You should not start from that assumption.

One company reported a difference in quality on its Dutch-language meetings depending on the channel used.

The best approach is to test the languages and the tools you actually use, rather than relying solely on a list of supported languages.

Can you share a transcript in several languages with a client?

A request along those lines was made in March, for external sharing.

If this matters for your use, check what is available at the time of rollout before promising a client a transcript or a summary in several languages.

Does multilingual change the rules on recording?

No.

Whether the meeting is in French, in Dutch or in several languages does not change the rules on informing participants and obtaining their agreement.

That information does, however, have to be understood by the people concerned. The applicable framework is detailed on the page about recording a professional meeting.

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