100 languages, and how we tested them
Talkativ works in 100 languages, plus auto-detect. We tested 83 of them on 2,560 recordings before we switched to our current speech engine. The other 17 have not been tested yet.
From those tests we sort the languages into three groups, so you know what to expect. The tests are our own, and a language can still do better or worse on your voice, microphone and room.
Highly accurate in 56 languages
In our tests these languages were right at least 9 times in 10, with 30 recordings per language:
English, German, Spanish, Russian, Korean, French, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Catalan, Dutch, Arabic, Swedish, Italian, Indonesian, Hindi, Finnish, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Greek, Malay, Czech, Romanian, Danish, Hungarian, Tamil, Norwegian, Thai, Urdu, Croatian, Bulgarian, Malayalam, Slovak, Telugu, Persian, Latvian, Bengali, Serbian, Azerbaijani, Slovenian, Kannada, Estonian, Macedonian, Icelandic, Armenian, Bosnian, Kazakh, Galician, Marathi, Afrikaans, Georgian, Belarusian, Gujarati, Tagalog, Lingala and Cantonese.
The other 44 languages
13 more work well. In our tests they were right between 2 times in 3 and 9 times in 10: Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Welsh, Nepali, Mongolian, Swahili, Punjabi, Uzbek, Maltese, Assamese and Javanese.
31 work, but treat them as a trial. They were less accurate in our tests, or we have not tested them yet: Latin, Maori, Breton, Basque, Albanian, Sinhala, Khmer, Shona, Yoruba, Somali, Occitan, Tajik, Sindhi, Amharic, Yiddish, Lao, Faroese, Haitian Creole, Pashto, Turkmen, Nynorsk, Sanskrit, Luxembourgish, Myanmar, Tibetan, Malagasy, Tatar, Hawaiian, Hausa, Bashkir and Sundanese.
Speech to text in Tamil, Russian, Korean and more
If you came looking for Tamil speech to text, Russian speech to text, Korean speech to text, Persian (Farsi) speech to text, Telugu, Urdu or Bengali (Bangla), all of those are in the highly accurate group. Malayalam voice typing is there too. Talkativ types into any app on your computer, in the language you speak.
Auto-detect, or choose your language
Auto-detect is the default: Talkativ works out which language you are speaking. If a result looks wrong, choose your language yourself: open Settings, then Preferences, then the Language card, and pick it under Spoken language.
Your words come out in the language you spoke. Talkativ does not translate.
If English is not your first language
You do not have to dictate in English. Speak in your own language and your words come out in that language, in any app. If you dictate in English too, we have not tested Talkativ on particular accents, so try the Free plan on your own voice first, and add names, places and work terms to Vocabulary.
Tips if a language is not coming out right
- Speak at a normal pace and cut background noise.
- Choose your language instead of leaving auto-detect on.
- Add names and words to Vocabulary, which every plan has, so they are spelt your way.
- Switch on Advanced formatting for the fuller clean-up.
Switching languages
Each dictation uses one language: the one you picked in Settings, or whichever auto-detect hears. If you move between languages during the day, leave auto-detect on. We have not tested mixing two languages in one sentence, so please do not count on it. There is more on this, with examples, in dictating in more than one language.
How a language is graded
A language lands in the highly accurate group if it was right at least 9 times in 10 in our test. The test used recordings from a public speech test set, 30 per language, and counted words that matched. It is a fair guide, not a promise. Chinese is in the second group. The test compares characters, which may have lowered its score, because written Chinese can come out in more than one form.
Works the same in every language
The Free plan gives you 2,200 words a week in all 100 languages, reset every 7 days, with no card. Talkativ pricing covers Pro and Max. Talkativ runs on Windows 10 and 11. It runs on a Mac too. Read about Talkativ for Mac. It needs an internet connection. Go back to the Talkativ homepage to see it working.