Voice input in Windows 10 in Russian: is it there and what to use instead

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

Windows 10 has no built-in voice typing in Russian: according to Microsoft's help, Russian is not on the Win+H language list for Windows 10, and settings cannot add it. There are three ways out: move to Windows 11, where Win+H has Russian, dictate in an online notepad in the browser, or install a separate app, such as Potok (potok.now).

What Windows 10 itself has

For voice, Windows 10 has two built-in tools. The first is the voice typing panel, opened with Win+H in any text field. The second is the old Windows Speech Recognition from the Control Panel, which is more about controlling the computer by voice than about typing text.

Both tools work only in their own languages. For Win+H in Windows 10, Microsoft lists English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese. The old recognition also has a short list, and Russian is in neither. If the input language is Russian, the Win+H panel either does not start or says that dictation is not available in this language.

Many guides online advise to “select Russian in the speech settings” or “download a speech pack”. In Windows 10 this does not help: a Russian speech pack for voice typing is not provided in it. Such advice is written for Windows 11, where Win+H really has Russian.

How to check that the version is the cause, not the settings

1. Press Win+R, type winver and press Enter. The window will say whether you have Windows 10 or Windows 11.
2. If it is Windows 10, switch the keyboard layout to English and press Win+H. The panel opens and starts listening: this means the microphone and the feature itself work.
3. Switch to Russian and press Win+H again. A message about an unavailable language or a silent panel in this case is not a fault but the limit of the feature.

If the panel does not open even in English, the problem is different: microphone access in the privacy settings, the selected recording device or the internet, because Microsoft's voice typing recognizes speech in the cloud.

Three ways to dictate in Russian on a computer with Windows 10

1. Upgrade to Windows 11. There Win+H understands Russian: you add Russian in Language & region, select it in the Speech section and dictate. This way is free but does not suit everyone: old computers lack a TPM 2.0 module or a processor from the compatibility list, and on a work laptop you often cannot change the system yourself. How to set up Russian dictation in Windows 11 is covered in a separate guide.

2. An online notepad in the browser. A website with voice input recognizes speech right on the page, and there is nothing to install. For a one-off task this is enough. The downside is that the text stays in the tab: you have to copy it and paste it into an email, a document or a messenger by hand. Besides, with free services it is not always clear where the recorded voice is stored.

3. A separate dictation app. It recognizes speech itself and inserts the finished text where the cursor is, in any program. It does not need Windows language packs, so the system version does not matter.

How this works in Potok

Potok is installed like an ordinary program and works in Windows 10 the same way as in Windows 11. Hold Ctrl+Space, say the phrase, release, and the text with punctuation appears in the field where the cursor was: in email, Word, Telegram, the browser or a code editor.

Recognition runs on our model trained for Russian speech, including English terms inside a Russian phrase. You can add surnames, titles and professional words to the personal dictionary so they are written the way you need. The recognition servers are in Russia, and payment is in rubles.

For the first 14 days all features are available for free, no card needed. After that, Free with 2500 words per week remains, or Pro at 690 ₽ per month (499 ₽ per month when paid yearly) with no volume limit, with a dictionary and voice snippets.

Potok is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia; it does not work without the internet.

Frequently asked questions

Built-in dictation and Potok

Primary sources: support.microsoft.com · support.apple.com