diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
index bc4f9f2..e3a559c 100644
--- a/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ noisekit/
 noisekit generate --dataset <hf-name> --samples N --preset P1 --preset P2 --output ./out --seed 42
 noisekit generate ... --preset noise --noise-dir /path/to/noise_wavs
 noisekit generate ... --no-nisqa          # skip NISQA (no model download, faster)
+noisekit generate ... --transcript-column utterance  # override transcript column (default: text/sentence/transcription/normalized_text)
 noisekit score ./audio_dir [--reference-dir ./ref] [--output scores.json]
 noisekit score ./audio_dir --no-nisqa     # skip NISQA for standalone scoring
 noisekit list-presets [--verbose]
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index a0eb8ac..3382648 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -64,6 +64,18 @@ uvx noisekit generate \
 
 `--preset` is repeatable: pass it once per preset.
 
+If your dataset stores transcripts under a different column name (e.g. `utterance`, `raw_text`, `translation`), use `--transcript-column`:
+
+```bash
+uvx noisekit generate \
+  --dataset my-org/my-dataset --split test \
+  --samples 100 --preset telecom \
+  --transcript-column utterance \
+  --output ./out
+```
+
+By default, noisekit tries these columns in order: `text`, `sentence`, `transcription`, `normalized_text`. An error is raised if none are found and `--transcript-column` is not set.
+
 For `noise`, you can supply your own background-noise WAVs with `--noise-dir` (e.g. [MUSAN](https://www.openslr.org/17/), [DEMAND](https://zenodo.org/record/1227121), or [FSD50K](https://zenodo.org/record/4060432)):
 
 ```bash
diff --git a/noisekit/cli.py b/noisekit/cli.py
index d553514..6e4a87b 100644
--- a/noisekit/cli.py
+++ b/noisekit/cli.py
@@ -46,6 +46,16 @@ def generate(
     nisqa: Annotated[
         bool, typer.Option("--nisqa/--no-nisqa", help="Compute NISQA scores (downloads ~50 MB model on first use)")
     ] = True,
+    transcript_column: Annotated[
+        str | None,
+        typer.Option(
+            "--transcript-column",
+            help=(
+                "Dataset column to use as the transcript. "
+                "Defaults to the first non-empty value among: text, sentence, transcription, normalized_text."
+            ),
+        ),
+    ] = None,
 ) -> None:
     """Generate a degraded speech dataset by applying audio presets to a clean source dataset."""
     console.print(
@@ -69,6 +79,7 @@ def generate(
         preset_file=preset_file,
         noise_dir=noise_dir,
         nisqa=nisqa,
+        transcript_column=transcript_column,
     )
 
 
diff --git a/noisekit/dataset.py b/noisekit/dataset.py
index 5386e9a..2dd4e8b 100644
--- a/noisekit/dataset.py
+++ b/noisekit/dataset.py
@@ -54,7 +54,13 @@ def extract_language(sample: dict, config: str | None = None) -> str | None:
     return None
 
 
-def extract_audio_and_text(sample: dict) -> tuple[np.ndarray, int, str]:
+_FALLBACK_TRANSCRIPT_COLS = ("text", "sentence", "transcription", "normalized_text")
+
+
+def extract_audio_and_text(
+    sample: dict,
+    transcript_column: str | None = None,
+) -> tuple[np.ndarray, int, str]:
     audio_field = sample["audio"]
 
     raw_bytes = audio_field.get("bytes")
@@ -73,11 +79,20 @@ def extract_audio_and_text(sample: dict) -> tuple[np.ndarray, int, str]:
     if array.ndim == 2:
         array = array.mean(axis=1)  # (samples, channels) → (samples,) for mono-only metrics
 
-    text = (
-        sample.get("text")
-        or sample.get("sentence")
-        or sample.get("transcription")
-        or sample.get("normalized_text")
-        or ""
-    )
+    if transcript_column is not None:
+        if transcript_column not in sample:
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"Transcript column '{transcript_column}' not found in dataset. "
+                f"Available columns: {list(sample.keys())}"
+            )
+        text = sample.get(transcript_column) or ""
+    else:
+        text = next((sample[c] for c in _FALLBACK_TRANSCRIPT_COLS if sample.get(c)), None)
+        if text is None:
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"No transcript column found. Tried: {list(_FALLBACK_TRANSCRIPT_COLS)}. "
+                f"Available columns: {list(sample.keys())}. "
+                "Use --transcript-column to specify the correct column."
+            )
+
     return array, int(sr), str(text).strip()
diff --git a/noisekit/pipeline.py b/noisekit/pipeline.py
index 7167b56..a0155b7 100644
--- a/noisekit/pipeline.py
+++ b/noisekit/pipeline.py
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ def run_generate(
     preset_file: Path | None,
     noise_dir: Path | None = None,
     nisqa: bool = True,
+    transcript_column: str | None = None,
 ) -> None:
     output_dir = Path(output)
     audio_dir = output_dir / "audio"
@@ -55,7 +56,7 @@ def run_generate(
     _seen_names: set[str] = set()
 
     for i, sample in enumerate(track(raw_samples, description="Generating …")):
-        ref_array, ref_sr, transcript = extract_audio_and_text(sample)
+        ref_array, ref_sr, transcript = extract_audio_and_text(sample, transcript_column)
         language = extract_language(sample, config)
         ref_16k = _resample_to_16k(ref_array, ref_sr)
         peak = np.abs(ref_16k).max()