Languages · Japanese
Japanese meeting transcription, written up for you.
Japanese listeners interrupt constantly by design — aizuchi backchannelling is politeness, and it is the single most confusing thing about diarising a Japanese meeting.
Japanese writes with three systems at once: kanji for content words, hiragana for grammar, katakana for loanwords and emphasis. A transcript has to make the right choice for each word, because writing a word in the wrong system is not a typo — it reads as a different register. Japanese also has no spaces between words and a small phoneme inventory with many homophones, so context does most of the disambiguating work.
Keigo is the second layer. Honorific, humble and polite forms change the verb entirely depending on the relative status of the people in the room — itadaku rather than morau, irassharu rather than iru — and business meetings run in them throughout. A transcript that flattens keigo loses information about who was addressing whom and in what capacity, which matters for a 議事録 circulated internally, where the record of who undertook a commitment to whom is part of the point. GetNotes reproduces the forms as they were spoken rather than normalising them.
The most practically awkward feature is aizuchi. Japanese listeners signal attention with continuous はい, ええ and そうですね, overlapping the speaker. To a diarisation system that looks like constant interruption. GetNotes labels speakers automatically and Claude writes the summary from the whole transcript, so the backchannelling does not become the minutes. Japanese business also still runs on in-person meetings, factory visits and client calls made in person — rooms with no video call to join.
Where it earns its keep
A client visit that has to produce a 議事録
Japanese business practice expects written minutes circulated after a meeting, often the same day. The junior member of the team is usually the one writing them while trying to follow the discussion. Recording the meeting removes that trade-off entirely.
A factory or supplier visit
A quality discussion on a production floor in Japanese, with English and katakana technical terms throughout, and no laptop open. A phone recording turns a walkthrough into a written record of the points raised and the follow-ups agreed.
A meeting that mixes Japanese and English
A discussion with an overseas colleague where speakers move between Japanese and English depending on the topic. GetNotes transcribes both in place, and the minutes can be written in English for the head office while the Japanese transcript stays available.
How GetNotes works
- Record or upload. Hit record on your phone or laptop in the room — or drop in an audio file you already have. No bot joins anything.
- It writes it down. Every word transcribed, every speaker labelled, in 90+ languages including ones that switch mid-sentence.
- Share the minutes.Summary, decisions, and action items with owners — ready before everyone's back at their desk.
Questions, answered
Does GetNotes write Japanese with kanji or only kana?
Transcripts use normal Japanese orthography — kanji for content words, hiragana for grammatical elements and katakana for loanwords — rather than kana-only output. That means the transcript can be used directly as the basis for a 議事録 instead of needing conversion first.
Does constant aizuchi confuse the speaker labels?
Japanese backchannelling — はい and ええ overlapping the speaker — is a genuine challenge for any diarisation system. GetNotes applies automatic speaker labels and Claude writes the summary and action items from the full transcript, so short acknowledgements do not end up dominating the minutes even when they appear in the transcript.
Can it produce minutes in English from a Japanese meeting?
Yes, and it is worth knowing what English loses. Keigo encodes who was deferring to whom, and that layer does not survive translation into a flat English summary. Keep the Japanese transcript alongside the English minutes if the register mattered — for an overseas parent company, the decisions and action items with owners are usually the part that needs to travel.
Is there an app to install for recording in a Japanese office?
No. GetNotes runs in the browser on iOS, Android and desktop and needs only microphone permission, so there is nothing for IT to approve and no bot appearing in anyone's calendar. Your first meeting is free, up to 30 minutes, with no credit card required.
Other languages
Your next Japanese meeting can write its own minutes.
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