Seven new languages for Word & Outlook Dictation
Microsoft has announced seven extra languages added to their ‘speech to text’ Dictation feature in Outlook and Word.
The new languages announced are:
- Hindi
- Russian
- Polish
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Korean
- Thai
- Chinese (Taiwan)
Your milage will vary
As a cloud service, the available languages will vary. It depends on the version of Microsoft 365, where you are and, it seems, the relative position of the sun and moon <sigh>.
The new languages were supposed to appear for Insiders in Microsoft 365 for Windows v2103 build 13806.20000 (12 Feb 2021). Only Hindi and Japanese show up on our machines (Insider and Public versions) and they appeared the month before this announcement (go figure).
We can only suggest looking at your Dictation languages choices to see what’s available.
All the new languages are in ‘Preview’ which Microsoft explains “… may have lower accuracy or less punctuation available. Improvements will happen over time.”
No languages have been promoted from ‘Preview’ to full status.
Transcribe has wider language support
If your language isn’t supported in the Word/Outlook list. Try Transcribe which has a much longer language list.
Dictate voice commands – the full, searchable list
Dictation and Read Aloud in Office
New look Dictation coming to Word for Windows
Convert your recording into text with Word’s new Transcribe
Three extra audio formats that work with Microsoft 365’s Transcribe