Languages & translation
Pick your spoken language, let Smart translation write in the language on screen, or translate a finished dictation into a new version.
Pick your spoken language
The picker is Dictation language, the first row of Settings → Dictation. Auto (detect automatically) recognizes the language as you speak. Or pin one of 35 languages (39 options, counting regional variants such as English (US) and English (UK)), from English and Spanish to Japanese, Hindi and Arabic. Setup asks the same question on its “Choose your language” page, with your Mac’s language already picked, or Auto if your Mac is set to English.
If auto-detect keeps guessing wrong, pinning your language settles it.
Smart translation
Smart translation lets you speak your own language; when you stop, Cluinn types it in the language of the app or website you’re writing into. Answer a Spanish email in Spanish, switch to an English document and keep talking the way you talk.
It’s set per persona: open the persona editor and set Translation to Smart translation (match the language on screen). It’s off until you choose it; a new account’s General persona starts on No translation. A persona can also use one fixed output language, so everything it handles comes out in that language.
Smart translation needs the Screen Recording permission (called Screen & System Audio Recording on macOS 15 and later) to recognize the language on screen. Once per recording, a picture of the window you’re typing into is sent to our servers to recognize its language; it isn’t stored. See Permissions.
Correct the target mid-dictation
While you dictate with Smart translation, the recorder pill shows a chip with the language it’s about to write. Guessed wrong? Click the chip and pick the right one from the searchable list, and your pick wins for that recording.
Hover a row in that list and a small padlock appears at its right. Locking a language pins it: Cluinn stops reading your screen and writes in that language for every recording until you unlock it. While a lock is on, the pill’s chip shows a padlock instead of its arrow; click it to hand the choice back to automatic detection. Picking a different language while locked moves the lock rather than ending it. The lock is kept on this Mac and isn’t synced to your account.
Personas override the pin
When a persona translates, your pinned spoken language steps aside: Cluinn detects what you said so the persona can translate it, then writes in the persona’s language.
Translate a dictation you already made
No need to record again. On the Dictations page, click the row’s Transcribe button (the arrows icon) and choose:
- Select a language: translate the text into the language you pick.
- Personas: rewrite the text in a persona’s voice.
- Original language: transcribe the audio again.
A translation or a persona rewrite is saved as a new version beside the original, with a version pager to flip between them, and the original stays as it was. Original language is different: the new transcript replaces the original, without a persona’s clean-up or a translation. Versions you already made are kept, and the pager goes back to the original.
Common questions
Which wins: my pinned language or the persona?
The persona, whenever it translates. Smart translation and fixed-language personas detect what you spoke; your pin applies to dictation without translation.
Does Cluinn keep what it reads from my screen?
No. Once per recording, a picture of the window you’re typing into is sent to our servers, only to recognize its language, and it isn’t stored.