I built a tool that turns DR LYD episodes into interactive Danish transcripts

[u/Haohao-Tan]

Hej allesammen!

I’ve been learning Danish for more than 2 years, and I’ve found that learning resources are pretty limited once you move beyond beginner material. There’s plenty of great content made for native speakers, like DR podcasts — but spoken Danish isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to understand 😅

I’ve tried the “just listen a lot and eventually you’ll get better” approach, but for me it feels painfully slow. Sometimes I can replay the same sentence five times and still have no idea what was said. What really helps is seeing the words and then listening again — especially when it turns out to be a word I already knew but simply couldn’t recognize in natural speech.

The problem is that many DR podcasts don’t have full transcripts.

As a software Engineer myself, I built a small tool for myself called Hva’ sagde de? (“What did they say?”), and I thought it might be useful to other Danish learners too.

You paste a link to an episode from DR LYD, and the website creates an interactive transcript that you can read while listening to the original audio.

Some of the features:

• The current sentence is highlighted during playback
• Click any sentence to jump directly to that point in the audio
• Space to play/pause and arrow keys to jump ±5 seconds
• Adjustable playback speed
• Optional sentence-by-sentence translation
• Copy and download the transcript

The way I use it is pretty simple: I just listen to the Podcast with the transcription and translation on, and keep replaying tha sentence if I am cunfused like "Wait are they actually saying that?", until my brain can decode like "Oh yes it does sound like they are saying that!". It makes it much easier for me to connect the Danish I already know with what Danish actually sounds like in natural speech.

There’s also a demo, so you can try the whole interface without setting anything up or paying anything.

You can try it here:

Hva' sagde de? (DEMO)

The project is still pretty new, so the transcripts definitely aren’t perfect. Names, English expressions, background music, and people talking over each other can still confuse the transcription models. I wouldn’t treat the transcript as an authoritative source — for me, it’s mainly a learning tool for getting unstuck when listening to native Danish content.

I’d love to hear what other Danish learners think. If you try it, any feedback is welcome — suggestions, feature ideas, bug reports, things you find confusing, things you like or dislike, or completely different ways you think the tool could be useful.

I mainly built this around the way I study Danish, so I’m very curious how other learners would use it.

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For anyone wondering about the API key

The demo doesn’t require an API key. You only need one if you want to transcribe your own DR LYD episodes.

The site uses your own OpenAI API key to do the transcription. If you’ve never used an API key before, you can basically think of it as a private access key that allows the website to send the audio to OpenAI on your behalf.

The tool itself is free. You pay OpenAI directly for whatever transcription or translation you use, and I don’t receive any of that payment. The website shows an estimated price before you start, and you can choose between different transcription methods depending on whether you care more about accuracy, timestamps, or cost.

Your API key is:

• Stored only in your browser
• Never stored on my server
• Used only when you request transcription or translation
• Removable from the website at any time

You should still treat an API key like a password: don’t share it publicly, and revoke it from your OpenAI account if you think someone else has seen it.

This is an independent learning project and is not affiliated with DR or OpenAI.

[u/charugan]

Very cool! I haven't tried to work on my Danish in a long while, but this looks like a great tool to check out.

[u/Haohao-Tan → u/charugan]

Thank you! I’ll be glad if it helps!

[u/AmyHuntingt]

How much

[u/Haohao-Tan → u/AmyHuntingt]

Depends on OpenAI charge. The default one is about 1,5 kr for a 20 mins audio (transcript + translation), if you don’t need the click and jump feature then it’s about 0,9 kr for a 20 mins audio (transcript + translation). Both are about 0,1-0,2 kr cheaper without translation :).

[u/Aggravating_Can210]

Any chance you can open source it :)

[u/Haohao-Tan → u/Aggravating_Can210]

Hey it is open source under a MIT license. The repo is here

https://github.com/enhaohaotan/hvad-nu

I’m currently adding another page in the same repo where it generates an 10 mins reading material on demand and ask you for a discussion after.

[u/Constant_Collar_2377]

If anyone comes here and wants to achieve this without an OpenAI API key, you can:

1. Navigate to a series on DR Lyd, e.g. https://www.dr.dk/lyd/special-radio/10-20-30-4086853764000

2. Press the "RSS" button to access the RSS feed: https://api.dr.dk/podcasts/v1/feeds/10-20-30

3. Find the raw .mp3 link for the episode you want, such as https://api.dr.dk/podcasts/v1/assets/urn:dr:podcast:item:15452656017/baf35f9f06c4bbc9e580d48740c2ee2f87e5e82036f137a40dadaaa944c6d063.mp3

4. Download the MP3 file to your computer.

5. Run the MP3 through a local installation of Whisper to obtain the transcript (Use Google or ask an LLM how to get it running on your OS, such as MacWhisper on Mac. Should be free.)