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Three different language settings

Vowen has three language settings and they do not affect each other. All three live in Settings > Language. Changing the interface to German does not make Vowen expect German speech, and setting a Hindi dictation language does not translate the app.
Settings > Language showing UI Language, Dictation Language, Notes Summary Language, English Spelling and Auto-translate to English

All three language settings live on one page in Settings > Language. They are independent of each other.

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Setting your dictation language

Go to Settings > Language > Dictation Language and click Change. A grid of the languages your current model supports opens; pick one, or leave it on Auto-detect.
For best accuracy, set a fixed language rather than relying on auto-detect. Auto-detect can occasionally switch to the wrong language mid-sentence.
Switching languages mid-sentence? Set Auto-detect and pair it with Soniox, which handles real-time multilingual transcription better than anything else we have tested.
The dictation language picker showing a searchable grid of languages with their native names, and an Auto-detect toggle

The picker shows only what your current model can transcribe. Auto-detect is the toggle in the top right.

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The language list changes with your model

The language picker is not a fixed list. It shows exactly what your currently selected speech model can transcribe, and different models offer very different sets. That has two consequences.
A stored language your new model cannot handle is silently reset to Auto-detect. If you set Tamil while using Nova 3 and then switch to Nova 2, which does not offer Tamil, Vowen quietly drops the setting back to Auto-detect rather than sending the model a language it will not understand. There is no prompt. Check the Dictation Language row after switching models.
Parakeet and Nemotron EN lock the picker entirely. These models have a fixed language built into the weights, so the grid is greyed out and explains why: “Parakeet only supports auto-detect”, “Parakeet (English) only transcribes English”, “Parakeet (Japanese) only transcribes Japanese”, “Parakeet (Mandarin) only transcribes Mandarin Chinese”, or “Nemotron EN transcribes English only. Switch to Nemotron Multilingual for other languages.” The Dictation Language row shows the model’s effective language instead of your stored one.

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English spelling

For British rather than American spelling, use Vowen’s native converter instead of an AI instruction. Set Settings > Language > English spelling to British English and Vowen rewrites color to colour, organize to organise, center to centre, defense to defence, and so on, as the last step before the text is inserted.
  • It runs on your device, deterministically. Nothing extra is sent anywhere.
  • It works whether or not AI enhancement is on. When enhancement is on, Vowen also tells the model to use British spelling, and the converter acts as a safety net for anything it missed.
  • American English is the default and applies no conversion.
The row appears only when your dictation language is English or Auto-detect, or when your model is an English-only or Parakeet model.
Settings > Language with the English Spelling row highlighted, its dropdown set to American English

English spelling, in Settings > Language. A dropdown, not a toggle, and it needs no AI provider.

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Auto-translate to English

Auto-translate to English is a Pro feature.
Turn on Settings > Language > Auto-translate to English and non-English speech comes out as English text. You can also toggle it from the tray menu, where it appears whenever your effective dictation language is not English. How the translation happens depends on your model, and the difference is privacy-relevant. On a cloud model or Parakeet, enabling auto-translate sends your transcribed text to a third service (translate.google.com) that you did not configure and that is separate from your speech provider. If that is not acceptable, use a local Whisper model for translation, or leave the setting off and translate through your own AI provider instead.
Settings > Language with the Auto-translate to English row highlighted and its toggle off

Auto-translate to English sits at the bottom of Settings > Language.

The toggle disappears when the effective dictation language is already English, since translation would be a no-op. On cloud models Vowen warns that translation adds a brief delay after transcription completes.

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Nemotron Multilingual

Nemotron Multilingual (macOS, Apple Silicon) covers 31 languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian. Its partial results arrive already punctuated and capitalized, which no other local model does. See Models & Engines.

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Parakeet language support

Parakeet is four separate models with four different language coverages.
  • Parakeet V3 auto-detects across 25 European languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian.
  • Parakeet V2 is English only and the fastest of the four.
  • Parakeet Japanese transcribes Japanese only. macOS only.
  • Parakeet Mandarin transcribes Mandarin Chinese only. macOS only, and it produces no timestamps.

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Language-specific recommendations

GigaAM v3, the on-device Russian model, was retired in v0.5.2. If it was still your selected model when you updated, Vowen shows a banner saying it has been removed and dictation will not run until you pick another one. For Russian, use local Whisper Large v3 or Large v3 Turbo, Whisper Large v3 on Groq, or Soniox.

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Tips for non-English transcription

  1. Use a multilingual model. The .en Whisper models, Parakeet V2 and Nemotron EN are English-only.
  2. Set the language explicitly instead of relying on auto-detect.
  3. Check the language row after switching models. An unsupported language is reset to Auto-detect without telling you.
  4. Add names and technical terms to your Dictionary. Only some engines act on them. See Accuracy.