Dictating in two languages on a Mac

Published 15 October 2026

If you write in two languages, dictation has to know which one you're speaking. Apple's Dictation lets you add several languages and switch between them. Whisper-based apps detect the language on their own. Sentences that change language halfway are the hard case for any tool, so it helps to know what to expect.

Adding languages to Apple Dictation

Open Apple menu → System Settings → Keyboard and scroll to Dictation. Next to Languages, click Edit and select each language and region you speak. To remove one, deselect it. The same list is where macOS keeps the languages it has downloaded, so you can tidy it up later.

Apple notes that availability varies by language and region, and features differ too. Automatic punctuation, for example, only covers the languages on Apple's feature availability page. If commas appear in your English but not in your second language, that's probably why.

Switching languages while you dictate

Once you've added two or more languages, a small language indicator appears next to the cursor while you dictate. Click it to pick another language. If your keyboard has a 🌐 key, you can press it and choose a language that way.

This works well when you switch at natural breaks. You write an email in German, switch, then reply to a colleague in English. It's slower when you change language every few sentences, because each switch is a click or a key press.

Automatic detection with Whisper

Whisper, OpenAI's open speech model, was built to do several jobs, and language identification is one of them. When an app doesn't fix the language in advance, Whisper works out which one you're speaking and transcribes in it. Many Mac dictation apps run it locally. Offline speech to text on a Mac covers the options.

In practice this means there's nothing to switch. You dictate a paragraph in Spanish, then the next one in English, and each comes out in its own language. Saypad works this way. It detects the language of each dictation, so you hold fn and talk in whichever language you need.

Mixed-language sentences

This is the hard case. Whisper identifies a language and transcribes in that language. A sentence that starts in one language and ends in another doesn't fit that model neatly. The foreign part may come out right. It may also come out misspelled, or written the way the main language would spell it. We haven't measured how often each happens, so we won't give you a number.

What we can tell you is what we tested on. The recordings in our offline accuracy test were mostly Russian with English product names and code terms mixed in. Against the large-v3-turbo model, the small model changed roughly one word in five, and in an earlier test the tiniest models turned the Russian into nonsense. If you mix languages often, use the larger model.

A few habits help with any tool:

• Keep each dictation mostly in one language and switch between sentences, not inside them.
• Add the foreign terms you use often to the app's custom vocabulary. In Saypad, Settings → Vocabulary takes spelling hints and fixed replacements, such as "kubernetes" → "Kubernetes".
• Read mixed passages once before you send them. That's where mistakes hide.

Which approach fits

If you write in one language at a time and switch a few times a day, Apple's Dictation with two languages added is simple and costs nothing. If you switch often, or don't want to think about which language is selected, an app with automatic detection takes that step away. Saypad does this for free on your Mac, and the more accurate 874 MB model downloads in the background after you install it.

Questions

How do I change the dictation language on a Mac?

While dictating, click the language indicator next to the cursor, or press the 🌐 key if your keyboard has one, and choose a language. The languages come from System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation → Languages.

Does Mac dictation detect the language automatically?

Apple's guide describes adding languages and switching between them yourself, not automatic detection. Whisper-based apps such as Saypad identify the language from what you say.

Can I mix two languages in one sentence?

You can try, but expect mistakes. Whisper is built to identify a language and transcribe in it, so a sentence that switches part way through is harder. Adding the foreign terms you use often to a custom vocabulary can help.

Is automatic punctuation available in every language?

No. Apple's feature availability page lists the languages with auto-punctuation, and some dictation languages aren't on it. Whisper writes punctuation itself, and the marks it picks depend on the model.