Steno supports 50+ languages through Whisper. Dictate in Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, and dozens more.
If you work in multiple languages, typing is doubly painful. You have to switch keyboard layouts, remember special characters, and wrestle with autocorrect that fights your every word. Voice dictation eliminates all of that. Just speak in the language you want, and Steno transcribes it — complete with proper characters, accents, and script.
Steno uses OpenAI's Whisper large-v3 model, which supports over 50 languages with high accuracy. Whether you are writing an email in French, a report in Japanese, or a message in Hindi, Steno handles it natively. No separate language packs, no keyboard switching, no configuration headaches.
Steno supports all languages available in Whisper large-v3. Here are some of the most popular ones, grouped by region:
The accuracy varies by language. Languages with extensive training data (English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese) tend to have the highest accuracy. Less common languages still work well but may require slightly more post-dictation editing.
1Open Steno Settings
Click the Steno icon in your menu bar and open Settings. Navigate to the Language section. You will see a dropdown with all supported languages and an "Auto-detect" option.
2Choose Your Language
Select the language you want to dictate in. If you frequently switch languages, leave it on Auto-detect — Whisper will identify the spoken language automatically and transcribe accordingly. For best accuracy with a specific language, select it explicitly.
3Position Your Cursor and Dictate
Click into any text field — email, document, chat, or browser — and hold your Steno hotkey. Speak naturally in your chosen language. Release the key when done, and Steno will transcribe your speech with proper characters and diacritics.
4Switch Languages Between Dictations
To switch languages, simply change the language setting in Steno, or rely on auto-detect. You do not need to restart the app. You can write a paragraph in English, switch to Spanish for the next one, and back again.
Steno offers two approaches to multilingual dictation:
Auto-detect mode is convenient when you switch languages frequently. Whisper analyzes the first few seconds of audio to determine the language and transcribes accordingly. This works well for languages that are phonetically distinct from each other.
Manual language selection gives higher accuracy because the model does not need to spend processing power on language identification. It is the better choice when you know you will be dictating in one language for an extended period, or when two languages sound similar (such as Spanish and Portuguese, or Norwegian and Swedish).
Recommendation: If you primarily work in one non-English language, set that language explicitly. If you switch between two or three languages throughout the day, auto-detect is the more practical choice.
Speak: "Buenos dias, queria confirmar la reunion de manana a las tres de la tarde en la sala de conferencias."
Steno output: Buenos días, quería confirmar la reunión de mañana a las tres de la tarde en la sala de conferencias.
Speak: "Bonjour, je vous ecris pour donner suite a notre conversation de la semaine derniere concernant le projet."
Steno output: Bonjour, je vous écris pour donner suite à notre conversation de la semaine dernière concernant le projet.
Whisper transcribes spoken Japanese directly into the appropriate script (hiragana, katakana, and kanji), making it far faster than typing with an IME keyboard.
Speak clearly and at a natural pace. Whisper handles accents well, but very fast speech or heavy mumbling reduces accuracy in any language.
Avoid mixing languages within a single dictation. While Whisper can handle some code-switching, it works best when each dictation segment is in one language. If you need to include a foreign word or phrase, dictate the main text first and add the foreign term manually.
Use a quiet environment. Background noise affects accuracy more for languages with smaller training datasets. A quiet room or a good microphone makes a noticeable difference. For more on this, see our guide on dictating while walking.
Check diacritical marks. Steno usually applies accents, umlauts, and tildes correctly, but it is worth a quick review, especially for languages like Vietnamese or Czech where diacritics change meaning.
If you work with international teams or clients, you might write emails in English to your US colleagues and in Spanish to your Mexico City office. Steno lets you switch seamlessly without changing keyboard layouts or opening different input tools.
Translators can listen to source material and dictate the translation directly. Set Steno to the target language, listen to a phrase, and speak the translated version. This is significantly faster than typing translations character by character.
Practice your pronunciation by dictating in the language you are learning. If Steno transcribes your speech correctly, your pronunciation is on track. It is an instant, objective feedback loop. For setup help, see our quick start guide.
Bloggers, journalists, and writers who produce content in multiple languages can draft articles by voice in whichever language the piece requires, then edit and polish the text afterward.
Steno supports over 50 languages through OpenAI's Whisper large-v3 model. This includes all major world languages and many regional languages. The full list is available in the Steno settings panel.
Yes. When set to auto-detect mode, Steno identifies the spoken language automatically and transcribes accordingly. For best accuracy, you can also manually select a specific language in Settings.
Whisper can handle some code-switching within a single dictation, but for best results, keep each dictation segment in one language and switch the language setting between segments.
No. All language support is built into Whisper's model, which runs on the server side. There is nothing extra to download or configure on your Mac. Just select the language and start speaking.
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