The Natural History Museum's official audio guides are published in English only. Every SoundCloud track the museum hosts, every transcript on nhm.ac.uk, and every narrated experience inside the building (including the Hintze Hall overhead audio and Our Story with David Attenborough) is in English. The museum has not released a Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, or Portuguese version of its audio content. If a listing says otherwise, it is a third-party app reselling access, not an NHM product.
This is a real gap for international visitors, and it is the main reason search results for this question are so confusing. Below is the honest breakdown.
What the museum itself publishes
The NHM's first-party audio sits in three places, and all three are English-only:
- SoundCloud (soundcloud.com/nhmlondon): playlists for Hintze Hall, the Evolution Garden, the Nature Discovery Garden, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, The River, Dinosaurs, Earth's Treasury, and From the Beginning. Every track is in English.
- Transcript pages on nhm.ac.uk: Hintze Hall, both gardens, The River, Wildlife Photographer of the Year. English transcripts only.
- In-gallery immersive audio: Our Story with David Attenborough is narrated in English. The museum notes that performances are subtitled, but those subtitles are English captions, not translations.
The NHM's Accessibility page (last updated March 2026) lists large-print guides, visual PDFs, and captioned films. It does not list any alternate-language audio product. There is no press release from 2024, 2025, or 2026 announcing a multilingual launch.
Does the NHM have a Spanish, French, or German audio guide?
No. The museum does not produce audio in any language other than English. Visitors expecting a language toggle on an official NHM app will not find one, because there is no official NHM audio-guide app. The closest the museum comes to multilingual provision is its printed museum map, which is offered in several languages. Audio is not.
Why search results claim otherwise
Search for "Natural History Museum audio guide in Spanish" and you will see listings that promise seven languages. Those listings come from third-party resellers (Viator, GetYourGuide, WeGoTrip, Vox City, MyWoWo, TravelMate, Civitatis, Headout, Tiqets, Pelago, Play & Tour, and similar). They sell timed-entry tickets bundled with their own app, and they translate their scripts into whatever languages their platform supports. The quality varies. Many are machine-translated from an English source, and visitor reviews frequently mention awkward phrasing, mispronounced scientific names, and audio that stops working at the museum entrance.
None of these products are produced, reviewed, or endorsed by the Natural History Museum. For more on that distinction, see nhm vs viator audio tours.
NHM audio languages: official vs third-party
| Language | NHM official audio | Third-party apps claim it? |
|---|
| English | Yes | Yes (all of them) |
| Spanish | No | Yes (Vox City, MyWoWo, Tourific, Civitatis) |
| French | No | Yes (Vox City, MyWoWo, Tourific) |
| German | No | Yes (Vox City, MyWoWo, Tourific) |
| Italian | No | Yes (Vox City, MyWoWo, AlpineMaster) |
| Mandarin (Simplified Chinese) | No | Yes (Vox City via Tiqets, Headout) |
| Korean | No | Yes (Vox City via Tiqets) |
| Japanese | No | Occasionally (MyWoWo family) |
| Portuguese | No | Occasionally (MyWoWo family) |
| Arabic | No | No consistent listing |
| Russian | No | No consistent listing |
Third-party language availability shifts by product and is not quality-checked. A listing that advertises seven languages may deliver a usable English version and a thin auto-translation for the rest. Rating distributions reflect this: Vox City's Tiqets listing sits at 3.0, Wanderung Guides at 3.1, LondonBillets at 2.9, and the Trishti Systems app at 2.4 on Google Play.
Is there any multilingual audio inside the museum?
Some older secondary sources mention that the Earth Hall's Volcanoes and Earthquakes gallery has button-triggered audio in multiple languages on physical exhibits. That claim is not confirmed on any current nhm.ac.uk page, and the 2026-01-13 audio-descriptive guide for that gallery on SoundCloud is English only. If you need this confirmed for accessibility planning, ask the museum directly.
What international visitors usually do
- Rely on the museum map (available in several languages) and the English signage, which is generally readable.
- Use a third-party app and accept variable translation quality.
- Bring a companion who reads English.
- Use a live phone translator app on labels, which works but is slow.
For a deeper look at the third-party options and which languages each one actually delivers, see nhm audio guide multilingual.
FAQ
Does the Natural History Museum have a Spanish audio guide?
Not officially. The museum publishes its audio content in English only. Spanish versions appear on third-party apps such as Vox City, MyWoWo, and Civitatis, which are not affiliated with the museum.
Is there a French or German audio guide?
Not from the museum. Third-party resellers offer French and German tracks, but quality is inconsistent and the audio is not produced by NHM.
Does the NHM have a Mandarin audio guide?
No official Mandarin audio. Vox City (sold via Tiqets) and Headout advertise Mandarin tracks as part of their paid reserved-entry products.
Can I download the NHM audio guide in another language?
You can download the museum's official English audio from its SoundCloud channel and from transcript pages on nhm.ac.uk. There is no alternate-language version to download.
Does the Our Story with David Attenborough immersive have translations?
No. It is narrated in English. The museum offers English subtitles for accessibility, not translated audio.
About Musa
Musa builds multilingual audio guides for museums. When curators use Musa, the same script ships in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, and Arabic without losing the original voice. If you are a curator or operator at a museum that wants to close the language gap that the NHM has not yet closed, we are easy to reach.