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I would like to switch the speech recognition between two languages in Windows 11 (speech to text to use in text boxes). So far I tried:

  • Switching the language priority in the time&language/language&region Settings ms-settings:regionlanguage (I have 2 languages installed)

  • Switching the speech language in the time&language/speech Settings ms-settings:speech

  • Changing the speech recognition settings in the Control Panel control /name Microsoft.SpeechRecognition

And so far nothing seems to work, it tries to pick up the same language (in my case English). Using the test phrase this is a test which sounds similar in the other language (German), I get the English output regardless of what language I use. This is the same for other similar-sounding words. Any ideas?

Albin
  • 11,950

2 Answers2

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After painstaking troubleshooting activities, I found out that the language used for speech to text depends on the selected keyboard layout. It's shown in the notification area on the taskbar (system tray).

enter image description here

Unless it got disabled somehow, which was/is the problem in my case, probably due to using ExplorerPatcher, so be aware! In Win 11 you can test this by using the (on-screen) touch keyboard which shows the current layout (or hitting Win+Space to change the language).

enter image description here

(All the other speech and language settings that I tried and described in my question probably/hopefully change different functionalities.)

Albin
  • 11,950
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I know this isn't exactly an answer to the original question, so please be lenient with my attempt to share valuable information in the most relevant place I could find. This is something I have struggled with for about a year and finally figured out an answer to today, so there are probably others out there who are having a hard time finding an answer too.

To change the speech recognition language without changing the keyboard layout, follow the following steps:

  • Go to Settings -> Language. If the language is not yet listed, click "Add a language" and install the language pack for the language that you want to use speech recognition with, if you don't have it there yet.
  • For that language, click on Options
  • Go to the "keyboards" section and click "Add a keyboard." Select the language that you want your keyboard layout to be in.
  • now delete any other keyboard layouts for that language.
  • do this for any other languages that you want to use on your computer. Keep the language for the keyboard layout the same for all of them.
  • you should now be able to use Win + Space to switch between languages without changing the keyboard layout.

Use case: You type and use voice typing in multiple languages, and you want to keep your keyboard layout the same all the time because it's hard to type when keys suddenly create a different character from what is labeled on the key.

I created this post using English voice typing and adding punctuation marks using a (non-English-language) keyboard layout.

user 90824602
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