Speak to translate on your Mac

Instead of typing, talk. Mate for Mac listens, turns your speech into text and translates it when you pause. Voice input is part of Mate Pro.

Use it

1. Pick the language you'll speak as the source language. Voice input needs a specific language; "Detect automatically" isn't enough.
2. Click the microphone button, Speak to translate. An overlay shows "Listening · English" with a waveform.
3. Talk. When you stop, Mate translates. Click Stop listening to end early.

The recognized text lands in the input field, so you can correct it and translate again.

First-time permissions

macOS asks for two permissions: Microphone and Speech Recognition. Allow both. If you declined, open System Settings › Privacy & Security, find Microphone and Speech Recognition, and switch Mate on. The error "Allow microphone and speech recognition access in System Settings to speak" means one of them is off.

Languages

Speech recognition is provided by macOS and covers about 50 languages. "Speech input isn't supported for this language" means yours isn't among them.

Tips

• Speak in full sentences and pause at the end; Mate uses the pause as the signal to translate.
• Use the Advanced or AI style for spoken language; they cope better with the way people actually talk.
• For a conversation with someone, alternate: speak, show them the translation, swap languages with Control+S, let them speak.

The same feature exists on iPhone and iPad.