Voice to text in any language: dictating and translating as you speak

A lot of people don’t live in one language. The European Commission reports that 59% of Europeans can hold a conversation in at least one foreign language, and the U.S. Census Bureau says 22% of people in the United States aged 5 and over speak a language other than English at home. You might think in one language, work in another and text your family in a third.

Voice tools handle this in three very different ways, and most guides mix them up:

1. Dictating in your language — speech recognition in the language you speak.
2. Switching between languages — dictating in Spanish in one message and English in the next.
3. Speaking one language and writing another — translation as part of dictation.

Here’s which tools do which, on Mac, iPhone and Android. Facts about Apple, Google, Microsoft and other apps are from their own help pages, checked October 2026.

1. Dictating in your own language

Every major platform has built-in dictation, and all of them support many languages — with the same caveat. Apple says Dictation “may not be available in all languages or in all countries or regions, and features may vary”; Google says talk-to-text “doesn’t work with all languages”. Check your language on Apple’s feature availability page or in Gboard’s settings before relying on it.

• iPhone: dictation follows your keyboard. Apple: “When you use a keyboard for another language, you can use Dictation in that language as well.” Add keyboards in Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
• Mac: System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation → Edit next to Languages, then add each language you dictate in.
• Android (Gboard): add languages in Gboard’s settings. Gboard notes that multiple languages must be enabled before you can switch between them.
• Wisper: recognises any language you speak, on Mac, iPhone and Android. The free plan covers one language; Pro covers all of them.

2. Switching between languages

This is where built-in tools get fiddly, because most assume you pick one language at a time:

• iPhone: switch keyboards with 🌐 and Dictation switches with it.
• Mac: while dictating, click the language shown next to the cursor, or press the Globe key and choose another.
• Gboard: tap the language abbreviation at the bottom left of the toolbar.
• Wispr Flow: its help center says it dictates in 100+ languages and auto-detects on Mac, Windows and iOS — but detects “one language per dictation, not per word”.
• Wisper: detects the language you speak, so you don’t pick it first. On iPhone, language chips — Auto, Spanish, French, German — sit right above the keys, so switching never means leaving the keyboard.

A practical tip if you mix languages in one sentence (“can you send me the Angebot by Friday?”): dictation tools are tuned for one language at a time, so mixed sentences are where mistakes happen. Keep loanwords in your dictionary, and read mixed-language messages before sending.

3. Speaking one language, writing another

This is the job most people actually mean when they search for “voice to text in any language”. There are four ways to do it.

Translator apps

Google Translate translates speech: tap the mic, speak, and see (or hear) the translation. Its conversation mode handles two people talking, and Transcribe translates continuous speech in near real time. All of it lives inside the Translate app, so to send the result you copy it and paste it into your message or email.

Best for: talking with someone in person, and one-off translations.

Keyboard translators

Gboard has a Translate feature in its features menu: you type, it previews the translation, and you tap to use it. Microsoft SwiftKey has a built-in translator that supports 60+ languages and shows the translated text above the keyboard. Both work on typed text — their help pages don’t describe translating speech.

Best for: people who type rather than talk.

Apple Live Translation

On iPhones with Apple Intelligence, Live Translation is built into Messages, FaceTime and Phone. Apple says it runs entirely on device: in Messages it can automatically translate messages, on FaceTime you get translated live captions, and on a phone call the translation is spoken aloud. Supported languages differ per app and are listed on Apple’s feature availability page.

Best for: conversations inside Apple’s own apps.

Translate as you dictate

The fourth way skips the copy-paste: you talk in your language, and translated text is typed straight into whatever app you’re in — Slack, Gmail, WhatsApp, a document.

That’s what Wisper’s Translate output does. Wisper always detects what you speak; you pick what it writes. Say “Send me the report by Friday” and get “Envíame el informe antes del viernes” in the email you’re writing. It translates into 30 languages, on every platform, and it’s part of Pro.

Best for: writing to people in their language all day, in any app.

Side by side

Setting up translation in Wisper

• Mac: choose the output language from the Wisper bar or press ⌃⌥L. To translate text you’ve already written, select it and press ⌥4 (Translate), or hold right ⌥ and say “in Spanish”. Details on the Mac page.
• iPhone: in the Wisper app, open Translate output and pick the language Wisper writes in; switch it from the keyboard. The iPhone page shows the setup.
• Android: hold the bubble to switch the output language. Offline mode, after a one-time ~640 MB download, covers dictation in the most widely spoken European languages; with a connection, Wisper works in any language. See the Android page.

Tips for dictating in more than one language

• Speak in full sentences. Recognition and translation both work better with context than with fragments.
• Teach it names. People, places and product names are the most common errors in any language. Add them to the dictionary once.
• Check numbers, dates and money. “Thursday the 3rd” and “3/4” are where translation slips cost the most.
• Mind formality. Many languages have formal and informal “you”. If the result sounds too casual or too stiff, select it and say “more formal” or “more casual”.
• Have important text checked. Machine translation is fine for daily messages. For contracts, medical or legal text, ask a fluent speaker. Even Apple notes that generative outputs may vary and important information should be checked.

If you only ever write in one language, built-in dictation in that language is free and good. If you write across languages every day, translation inside dictation saves the most time — try speaking your next message in your own language and sending it in theirs. For more on writing quickly by voice, see how to write emails up to 3× faster by voice.