Languages · Chinese

Chinese speech to text on your Mac

NoteOwl does Chinese speech to text on your Mac with on-device AI models. It understands Mandarin, and in the sample below it wrote Simplified characters. Dictate into any app, record a call or import a recording; nothing you say is sent anywhere to be transcribed.

Dictation and voice notes are free and unlimited. Meetings, imported recordings, summaries and chat are Pro: $79 once for one Mac, with a 7-day free trial in the app and no card. With its models downloaded, NoteOwl works offline.

Download free

Chinese in NoteOwl

Plan
Dictation free and unlimited; meetings and imports in NoteOwl Pro
Dictation and meetings
Settings → Auto-Context → Spoken language: Auto-detect
Imported recordings
Language detected automatically
On the sample
97.7% of the characters matched
Where it runs
On your Mac; offline after the one-time model download

A real sample

What does NoteOwl’s Chinese transcript look like?

Here’s a sample recording, and NoteOwl’s transcript of it, unedited. On this sample NoteOwl matched 97.7% of the characters (punctuation and spacing aside).

The recording · 0:58

A short work call between 雨婷 and 浩然. NoteOwl detected the language by itself.

  1. 嘉宾名单也基本确认了, 目前一共一百二十人。 比预想的多挺好的, 那线上直播要不要做?

    In English: The guest list is basically confirmed too, a hundred and twenty people in total so far. More than we expected, that’s great. So should we do an online livestream?

  2. 我觉得可以做, 很多外地客户来不了现场, 看直播挺方便的, 成本也不高。 行,

    In English: I think we should. A lot of out-of-town clients can’t come in person, a livestream is convenient for them, and it doesn’t cost much. Okay,

  3. 那就定了现场和直播同时进行, 直播设备谁来负责? 我来吧,

    In English: then it’s decided: in person and livestream at the same time. Who’s in charge of the streaming equipment? I’ll do it.

  4. 周四之前我联系好技术团队, 把设备和网络都测试一遍。 好, 辛苦了,

    In English: Before Thursday I’ll get in touch with the tech team and test all the equipment and the network. Great, thanks for handling it.

  5. 我这边把邀请韩和流程表再核对一下, 周五统一发给大家。 没问题, 对了,

    In English: On my side I’ll double-check the invitations and the run sheet, and send them to everyone on Friday. No problem. Oh, by the way,

Lines copied from NoteOwl’s transcript exactly as it wrote them, mistakes included. The English beside each line is our translation for readers, not NoteOwl output.

How does NoteOwl write Chinese?

In Simplified characters with no spaces between words. Full stops came out as the Chinese 。, but commas and question marks came out half-width, as , and ?, each followed by a space. Numbers stayed in characters: 一百二十人 (120 people), 十五号 (the 15th).

If a document needs full-width punctuation throughout, one find-and-replace each after export fixes it: “, ” to “，” and “? ” to “？”. Weekdays came out the way people say them, 周四 and 周五, and the particles 吧 and 了 were all in place.

Which Chinese does NoteOwl understand?

Mandarin. That is the variety NoteOwl lists for Chinese, and the sample on this page is Mandarin, transcribed into Simplified characters.

Mandarin is the working language of offices across mainland China and Singapore, and of Chinese-speaking teams around the world. Typical recordings are client calls, product launches like the one in the sample, supplier negotiations and interviews.

What did NoteOwl get wrong in the Chinese sample?

Same-sounding characters, mostly: the name 浩然 came out as 好然, 邀请函 (invitation) as 邀请韩, 再碰 as 在碰, and the closing 周四见 as 周四件. It also dropped the 儿 in 到这儿. Overall, 97.7% of characters matched.

Names are the usual casualty in Chinese, because several characters share a sound. At the very end, Haoran’s reply 好的 ran straight into the sentence before it, with no punctuation between them. When you check a transcript, read names and short set phrases first.

Can vocabulary rules fix Chinese names?

Yes, on Pro, within one limit. A rule such as 好然 → 浩然 matches only where the word sits next to punctuation or a space, because written Chinese leaves no gaps between words for a rule to find.

In the sample, 好然 was followed by a comma, so that rule would have fixed it. A name in the middle of a sentence, with characters on both sides, won’t be matched; correct those when you edit.

Is there a setting for Chinese?

No. Mandarin is recognised from the audio itself. Settings → Auto-Context → Spoken language pins only English, Hindi, Spanish, French or German, so for Chinese it belongs on Auto-detect.

Macs set to English start that menu on English, and while it stays pinned there, dictation and meetings are decoded with Latin letters only: no 汉字 can come out. Imported files never read the menu; their language is always detected automatically.

Is Chinese speech to text free in NoteOwl?

Yes, for dictation. Speaking Chinese into any app is free and unlimited, forever, like voice notes. Meetings, imported recordings, summaries, Chat and custom vocabulary are part of NoteOwl Pro.

NoteOwl Pro is $79 once for one Mac, with a 7-day free trial in the app and no card. Everything runs on your Mac, with the same on-device AI models on both plans.

Dictation in Chinese, into any app
FreeUnlimited
ProUnlimited
Voice notes
FreeUnlimited
ProUnlimited
Chinese meetings, with no bot joining
FreeNo
ProYes
Imported Chinese recordings
FreeNo
ProYes
Summaries, action items and Chat
FreeNo
ProYes
Custom vocabulary
FreeNo
ProYes
Read and export your own transcripts
FreeYes
ProYes

FAQ

Questions about Chinese transcription

Is Chinese dictation free?

Yes. Mandarin dictation is free with no limit: tap fn, speak, tap fn again, and the characters type wherever your cursor sits. Voice notes are also free. Meetings, imports, summaries, chat and memory are Pro, paid once at $79 for one Mac, after a 7-day trial in the app with no card.

Does Chinese transcription work offline?

Yes. Mandarin recognition happens on your Mac. The first dictation on Auto-detect and the first import may each download a piece of the model that isn’t there yet, so do them once while connected; afterwards, a flight or a bad hotel connection makes no difference.

Does NoteOwl detect Chinese automatically?

For imported recordings, every time. For dictation and meetings, as long as Spoken language is on Auto-detect; left on English, no Chinese characters can appear.

Can I import a recording in Chinese?

Yes, on Pro or the trial. Take a recorded interview, a webinar or a call saved as m4a, mp3, wav or mp4, and drop it on Transcripts or use Import Recording. NoteOwl detects Mandarin, writes the transcript locally and splits it by speaker.

Does it work for meetings in Chinese?

Yes, with Pro. NoteOwl records your side and everyone else’s through your Mac, so there’s no bot, whatever meeting software your team uses. Afterwards you have the Chinese transcript by speaker, a summary and action items.

How accurate is NoteOwl in Chinese?

On the Mandarin sample above, 97.7% of characters matched with punctuation and spaces set aside, and the misses were homophones. Try your own recordings during the trial.

Keep exploring

More languages

Dictation, meetings and recordings

Free tools

All languages

Transcribe Chinese on your Mac

Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.

Download free

macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended

About NoteOwl

NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.

NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds

Last updated