LipoThe Lipo blog
Guides on voice typing, dictation in many languages, and speaking in one language to get text in another. Written by the people who build Lipo, and tested in the languages most apps get wrong.
Guide · Updated September 4, 2026
How to use dictation on Mac: setup, commands and languages
Apple's dictation is free and built in. This guide covers turning it on, the shortcut, the spoken punctuation commands, the language list, and the four things it still cannot do.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
Voice typing vs dictation vs speech to text: what's the difference?
People use these three terms as if they mean the same thing, but they describe three different jobs. This guide explains each one, which one you need, and where translation fits in.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
Bangla voice typing on Mac: type Bengali by speaking
Apple's built-in dictation does not support Bangla. This guide shows how to voice type in Bengali on a Mac, how Banglish sentences are handled, and how to speak Bangla and get English text.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
Hindi voice typing on Mac: Devanagari output, Hinglish included
How to voice type in Hindi on a Mac, what Apple's built-in Hindi dictation gets wrong, how Hinglish sentences are handled, and how to speak Hindi and get English text.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 4, 2026
Arabic voice typing on Mac: dialects, tashkeel and right-to-left text
Five spoken dialects share one written script, and English words land in the middle of your sentences. What Arabic voice typing has to get right, from tashkeel and hamza to the right-to-left cursor, and how to speak Arabic and get English.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 4, 2026
Spanish voice to text on Mac: accents, ñ and usted
Accent marks, the tilde on the n, the opening question mark, and the choice between tu and usted. What a Spanish dictation app has to get right, how regional variants and Spanglish are handled, and how to speak Spanish and get English.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 4, 2026
Japanese voice typing on Mac: kanji, kana and keigo
The same sounds can be written several ways, and the wrong level of politeness reads as rude. How kanji conversion, keigo, katakana loanwords and full-width punctuation are handled, and how to speak Japanese and get English.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
How to voice type in mixed languages on Mac (Hinglish, Banglish, Spanglish)
Most apps lock onto one language per recording, so the English word in your Hindi sentence comes out wrong. How mixed-language voice typing works, and how to set it up once and forget it.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
The best voice dictation apps for non-English languages
Most dictation apps are excellent in English and much weaker everywhere else. Which apps handle Spanish, Bangla, Hindi, Arabic and French properly, and how to test one yourself in ten minutes.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
The best dictation software for European languages
Accent marks, word endings and polite forms are where European-language dictation usually breaks. What to check for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish and Ukrainian.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
Voice dictation that actually works for Bangla, Hindi, Tamil, and Urdu
South Asian languages break most dictation apps: conjunct letters, mixed-in English, and names no model has seen. What works on a Mac for Bangla, Hindi, Tamil and Urdu.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 2, 2026
How to dictate in one language and type in another on your Mac
Think in your mother tongue and send the email in English. How speak-to-translate dictation works, why most tools cannot do it, and how to set it up.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 3, 2026
Voice typing for WhatsApp, Telegram and Slack on Mac
Your family group, a client, and your team in Slack, often in three languages in one morning. How to answer all of them by speaking, with one key and no settings panel in between.
Read the guideGuide · Updated September 3, 2026
Voice typing in Claude Code and Cursor in your own language
The prompt in your head is not in English, but the code words inside it are. How to speak a prompt in your own language and paste clean English into Claude Code or Cursor, with technical words kept exact.
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