Languages & Scripts
Dictating in another language, mixing two in one sentence, and choosing what script the finished text comes out in.
Tiune dictates in far more than English, and on Pro it will follow you when you change language partway through a sentence. What it types — which language, which script — is yours to set.
Dictating in another language
Which languages you can use depends on the engine doing the listening, not on Tiune itself.
| Languages | Where it runs | |
|---|---|---|
| Tiune Instant | English | Your machine |
| Tiune Turbo | English | Your machine |
| Tiune Multilingual | 99 languages | Your machine |
| Cloud transcription (Pro) | 90+ languages | Our servers |
If you dictate in a language other than English, you need either Tiune Multilingual installed or Pro. It's a large download (~550 MB), and Tiune tells you honestly how it's likely to run on your hardware before you commit to it. See Choosing Models.
On Plus, the engine still decides
Plus adds the AI cleanup pass, but transcription still runs on whichever engine you have installed — so it hears whatever that engine hears. Instant and Turbo are English-only. If you dictate in another language on Plus, install Multilingual. On Pro the question doesn't arise: transcription happens in the cloud either way.
More than one language, in one breath
On Pro, a single sentence can hold more than one language. Start in Urdu, land in English, drop a French phrase in the middle — the whole thing comes out right, in one pass, with no setting to change and nothing to switch between.
This is not a mode you turn on. There is nothing to select and no moment where you tell Tiune you're about to switch. You just talk.
Why this one needs Pro
It sits on Pro for a structural reason rather than a commercial one.
The on-device engines commit to one language per window of audio and cannot revise that choice partway through a sentence. This isn't a matter of model size — no local model of any size does it, because the language is decided once, up front, for the whole window. Ask a local engine to handle a sentence that changes language halfway and it will do the only thing it can: pick one and force the rest to fit.
Cloud transcription detects per utterance instead, and the detection runs inside the utterance, so a sentence is allowed to change its mind.
On Free and Plus, a mixed sentence will still produce text — it will just be text that committed to one language when you didn't.
English on your computer, everything else in the cloud
On Pro, Settings → Speech → Where it runs has three choices:
- Offline — everything is transcribed on your computer.
- Online, offline backup — English stays on your computer, and anything else goes to the cloud. That includes a sentence that starts in English and switches partway through: once Tiune hears the switch, the whole dictation goes to the cloud, so nothing from the first half is lost.
- Online only — every dictation goes to the cloud.
Tiune decides, for each dictation, using the on-device English engine's own confidence in what it heard. It was checked on American, British and Indian English, because an accent is not a different language and shouldn't be sent anywhere as if it were.
This choice is on Mac and Windows. On Android, Online, offline backup means the cloud first, with the phone's own engine taking over when you're offline.
If the cloud can't take a dictation, Tiune uses the on-device engine's words instead, and the bar says so on that capture: cloud unavailable, or offline.
Write it as
Speaking a language and writing it are separate choices. Settings → Writing → Write it as decides what the finished text looks like:
- As spoken — the language and script you actually used.
- Latin letters — the same words, in the Latin alphabet. Urdu stays Urdu; it's just spelled in letters your keyboard has.
- English — translated.
The middle option is the one people underestimate. It transliterates, never translates — your words, your phrasing, your meaning, in a script that survives being pasted anywhere. This is the Roman Urdu path, and it works the same way for any non-Latin script.
Why Pro defaults to Latin letters
A mixed sentence is exactly where scripts collide. Half in Urdu script and half in Latin is not what anyone dictating into a chat box, a commit message or a ticket wanted, so on Pro the default is Latin letters — one script, whatever you spoke. Set it back to As spoken any time. Speech already in Latin letters is untouched either way.
Write it as needs the AI cleanup pass to do properly, so the control appears only on plans and engines that can serve it.
Meeting notes, in Latin letters
Meeting notes are shown in Latin letters whatever was spoken, so a meeting in Urdu reads as Roman Urdu and can be searched and copied with an English keyboard. A toolbar at the top of each meeting switches between Original and Translate to English (or another language you pick), and the summary is written in the language you're viewing.
When you're offline
Dictation itself never needs a connection. What changes offline is which of the above is available — the cloud engine and the cleanup pass both need one, so mixed-language sentences and Write it as are online capabilities.
Roman Urdu specifically has a local path with real limits worth understanding before you rely on it. See Offline Mode.
Related
- Choosing Models — installing Multilingual, and what it costs you in disk and speed.
- How Tiune Writes — the cleanup pass that Write it as rides on.
- Plans — what Free, Plus and Pro each include.