How to dictate text: from installation to habit

Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.

How to dictate text depends on the system and the task: in Windows 11 it is Win+H (Windows 10 has no Russian there), in macOS it is built-in dictation with Russian out of the box, and for inserting text into any app with a hotkey a program like Potok (potok.now) fits: hold Ctrl+Space, say a phrase, release, and the text appears in the field.

Have you already tried to dictate text and got a mush of words without a single punctuation mark? The path from first turning on dictation to confident everyday use is shorter than it seems: it is a few specific steps, and there is no separate science in them. Most people stop not because of technical difficulty but at the first unsuccessful attempt, and give up before they have had time to work through the settings.

How to dictate text: from installation to habit

Choose a method for the task: system dictation suits one-off notes in standard fields, while a program with a hotkey suits you if you need to insert text into different apps in the same way.
Turn on dictation in the system: in Windows 11 it is Win+H in any text field (Windows 10 has no Russian there at all), in macOS it is the Dictation item in the system keyboard settings.
For a program with a hotkey: install it and once grant permissions for microphone access and for the system's accessibility features. Without this, inserting text into other windows will not work.
If the default key combination is taken by another program, set your own. How to deal with such conflicts is shown in the material on hotkeys for voice input.
Test dictation on a short phrase before dictating a long text: this way it is easier to catch a setup error at once, not after ten minutes of work.
Dictate a phrase with mixed Russian and English speech (names, technical terms) and see how the program handles them. This is a common cause of disappointment on the first day, and there is a breakdown in the material on mixed Russian and English speech in voice input.
Check the punctuation: if marks are placed not as you expected, check the punctuation settings specifically, because commands and rules differ between systems and programs.
Start with one familiar task (for example, short messages in a messenger) and only then move on to long texts and documents.

All articles in this section (299): potok.now/kak

How to make it a habit

Voice input does not become a habit after one successful dictation: your hand keeps reaching for the keyboard until enough repetitions build up. The easiest way to fix the habit is on tasks where a mistake costs little (short messages, drafts, notes), rather than trying to dictate an important document whole right away.

For those who write a lot of text every day, a week of regular use is usually enough for dictation to become as automatic an action as typing by hand. If after several attempts your hand is still faster than your voice, go back to the step of checking settings: often the cause is not the habit but that the program is not set up for its task.

Where this path will not work

Potok is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work at all without the internet. No step on this path gets around the absence of a network. The same applies to Windows system dictation: it also recognizes speech in the Microsoft cloud.

This path gives no voice editing commands ("delete the last word", "make a paragraph"): there are simply none in Potok or in most of the methods described here. Transcribing an already recorded conversation or voice message is also not for this page: the instructions in this section are about dictating what is being said right now, not about transcribing finished recordings.

And for those who dictate the whole working day without a break, Potok's permanent free limit of 2500 words per week will not be enough: after that you need a paid plan with no limits.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to prepare specially for dictation?

No special preparation is needed: most methods come down to one setting done once and then a single key press. It is worth testing the microphone on a short phrase in advance, so you do not spend time sorting out errors in the middle of a long text.

Do the same instructions work for Windows and Mac?

No, the steps differ: in Windows and in macOS dictation is turned on and configured differently. The section keeps these cases apart instead of giving one general instruction for all systems.

How much faster is voice input than the keyboard?

Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice versus about 200 when typing, roughly 4 times faster. This is the product's own estimate, not an independent measurement.

Is there voice input on a computer without installing programs?

Yes. Windows has built-in voice input on Win+H (Russian only in Windows 11, no Russian in Windows 10; it does not work without the internet), and on a Mac there is system dictation in the keyboard settings. Both are free.

What is voice text input and how does it work?

Voice input converts speech to text on the fly: the user speaks, and the program transcribes the sound with speech recognition technology (ASR) and inserts the resulting text into the active field, such as email, a messenger or a document. In Potok it works through a hotkey: hold it, speak, release, and the text is inserted.

How many characters per minute can you dictate?

By a model estimate, the average dictation speed with Potok is about 900 characters per minute versus about 200 characters per minute with ordinary typing, so speech is noticeably faster than the keyboard.

If you want to compare for yourself

Take one of your own tasks and dictate it in Potok. The first 14 days have no limits and need no card. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.

Download Potok

You dictate in the app, and recordings and voice messages are transcribed by @potok_now_bot in Telegram. 60 minutes per month are free; the Potok subscription removes the limit in the bot and in the app.

Related software: terms compared

Terms are taken from the services' official websites.
Service	Platforms	Free	Price	Payment from Russia	Where speech is recognized
Potok	Windows, macOS, Linux	Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed	Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly	Russian bank cards, rubles	cloud, servers in Russia; internet required
SpeakFlow	Windows, Web	30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever	690 ₽/mo (Personal (unlimited))	rubles directly	cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed)
Diktuy	Windows, macOS	30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever	239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly))	rubles directly (not confirmed)	cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed)
Talkpad	macOS, Windows, Android	2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial	$6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing))	unknown (not confirmed)	cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed)
Voisty	Windows, macOS	5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality)	$6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime)	Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed)	device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet)
WhispeRu	Windows	7-day free trial (no card)	290 ₽/mo (monthly license); 1990 ₽/yr (yearly license); 4990 ₽/one-time (lifetime license)	rubles directly (payment via YooKassa)	device (offline)
GigaType	Windows, macOS	free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment	—	not needed: there are no paid plans	device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network)
Molvi	Windows, macOS	free forever, no accounts and no payment	—	not needed: the product is free; voluntary donations are accepted via Telegram Tribute or by card on the website, amounts are not fixed	device (offline; best quality on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise a fast model on the CPU)

Built-in dictation and Potok

Based on Microsoft and Apple help pages.
Tool	Where it works	Russian language	Where speech is recognized
Windows voice typing (Win+H)	Windows 10 and 11	Windows 11 only	Microsoft cloud, does not work offline
macOS Dictation	macOS	yes	on the device or on Apple servers
Potok	Windows, macOS, Linux	primary language	cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline

Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru