How to dictate in multiple languages and accents with Amical

Step by step

1. 1

   Pick a primary language and verify it transcribes you cleanly first

   Open Amical Preferences, set the transcription language to your most-used language, and dictate three test paragraphs into a blank Notion page. Read aloud the kind of sentences you actually write in that language — not a tongue twister, not a song lyric, just normal email and chat phrasing. Check the accuracy at your natural speaking pace and your natural accent. If accuracy is below ninety percent on neutral prose, fix that before adding a second language. A clean primary baseline makes the multi-language workflow tractable; a messy baseline makes it impossible to debug.

2. 2

   Bind a second hotkey to your secondary language for one-press switching

   In Amical's hotkey settings, add a second push-to-talk binding tied to your secondary language. Hold ⌥ space for English, hold ⌃ space for Spanish, as an example. The moment you press the second hotkey, Amical loads the secondary language model for that one capture, then returns to your default on the next press. This is faster than switching language settings in a menu mid-conversation. Bind no more than three languages this way — beyond three, the cognitive cost of remembering which finger does which language outweighs the typing savings.

3. 3

   For code-switched sentences like Spanglish or Hinglish, pick the dominant language

   If you naturally say 'voy al meeting de las tres' or 'main usually call karta hoon at six', press the hotkey for the dominant language of the sentence — usually the one that supplies the verbs and grammar. The transcriber handles embedded foreign nouns better than embedded foreign verbs. So for Hinglish with Hindi grammar and English nouns, use Hindi mode. For Spanglish with Spanish grammar, use Spanish mode. If half your sentence flips languages mid-clause, split it: release the hotkey at the switch point, press the other language's hotkey, dictate the rest.

4. 4

   Build a separate custom vocabulary file per language

   Open Amical's custom vocabulary settings and create one list per language: English, Spanish, Hindi. Add the proper nouns, brand names, and technical terms that show up in each language's writing — your company name in the English list, your family members' names in the Spanish list, your project codenames in whichever language your team uses for them. Amical applies the vocabulary list that matches the active transcription language, so a teammate name only autocorrects in the language where you actually write it. This prevents English autocorrects from corrupting Spanish dictation.

5. 5

   Train your accent over a week by reviewing and correcting recent transcriptions

   Once a day for the first week, open Amical's recent transcriptions view and scan for repeated mistakes — words your accent consistently throws off. Common patterns: Indian English speakers losing the 'th' in 'thing', Spanish speakers having 'sheet' transcribed as 'shit', French speakers losing the 'h' in 'hotel'. Add the correct spelling of any high-frequency offender to custom vocabulary with a pronunciation hint if Amical supports one. Within seven days of this daily review, accent-specific error rates drop by half because your most-spoken words are now hard-coded into the recognition layer.

Frequently asked questions

Use Amical with the apps in this guide

Gmail

Slack

Notion

Built for these roles