Languages · Japanese
Japanese speech to text on your Mac
NoteOwl does Japanese speech to text on your Mac with on-device AI models, writing kanji, hiragana and katakana. Dictate into any app, record a call or import a recording, and 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. Once its models are downloaded, NoteOwl works offline.
Japanese 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
- 91.4% of the characters matched
- Where it runs
- On your Mac; offline after the one-time model download
A real sample
What does NoteOwl’s Japanese transcript look like?
Here’s a sample recording, and NoteOwl’s transcript of it, unedited. On this sample NoteOwl matched 91.4% of the characters (punctuation and spacing aside).
The recording · 0:49
A short work call between 美咲 and 大輔. NoteOwl detected the language by itself.
NoteOwl’s transcript
In English
対応ページの件今の状況を教えてもらえますかデザインはほぼできていて募集職種は五つ載せる予定です。
In English: About the [careers] page, could you tell me where things stand now? The design is almost done, and we plan to list five open positions.
いいですね、社員インタビューの記事はどうしましょうか三本載せたいんですが撮影がまだ一本しか終わっていなくてではまず一本だけで公開しましょう残りは後から追加すれば大丈夫ですそれなら来週の月曜日に公開できると思いますかりますまでに最終盤を検証環境に挙げてもらえますかでに挙げて確認できるようになったらご連絡します。
In English: Good. What should we do about the employee interview articles? I’d like to include three, but only one has been photographed so far. Then let’s publish with just one for now; it’s fine to add the rest later. [Understood.] In that case I think we can publish next Monday. [That helps.] Could you put the final version up on the staging environment by [Thursday]? [Yes, I’ll put it up by Thursday] and let you know once it’s ready to review.
では人事部長には私から共有しておきますね。 よろしくお願いしますではまた木曜日に
In English: Then I’ll share it with the head of HR myself. Thanks for that. See you Thursday, then.
How does NoteOwl write Japanese?
In kanji and kana with no spaces between words, and with light punctuation. In the sample, 。 appeared only three times and 、 once, so several sentences and questions ran together on one line. Numbers stayed in kanji with their counters: 五つ, 三本, 一本.
Katakana words came out in katakana (デザイン, インタビュー, ページ), and polite forms such as もらえますか, ご連絡します and よろしくお願いします were kept as spoken. There was no ？ anywhere, even after questions ending in か.
What did NoteOwl get wrong in the Japanese sample?
It heard 採用ページ (careers page) as 対応ページ, chose the wrong kanji in 最終盤 (for 最終版) and 挙げて (for 上げて), and dropped words where the speakers traded short replies: 承知しました, 助 from 助かります, and 木曜日 from 木曜日までに. 91.4% of characters matched.
In the English gloss of the sample, square brackets mark words the transcript got wrong or left out. Quick back-and-forth is where to look first when you check a Japanese transcript, then homophones.
Can vocabulary rules fix Japanese words?
Only in part. On Pro, a rule such as 最終盤 → 最終版 replaces what NoteOwl writes, but only where the word sits next to punctuation or a space. Japanese has no spaces between words, so most words have kana or kanji on both sides, and a rule can’t find them.
In this sample, even 対応ページ at the very start was followed by の, so a rule for it would not have fired. For Japanese, plan on correcting names and homophones by hand.
Is there a setting for Japanese?
No. Japanese is picked up from the audio. In Settings → Auto-Context, the Spoken language menu only lets you pin English, Hindi, Spanish, French or German, so with Japanese, Auto-detect is the setting you want.
Macs whose system language is English open that menu on English, and a pinned English means dictation and meetings are decoded without any kana or kanji to choose from. Imported recordings aren’t tied to the menu; NoteOwl identifies their language itself.
Where is Japanese transcription useful?
Japanese is spoken by about 125 million people, almost all in Japan, where 議事録 (meeting minutes) are a normal part of office work. Typical recordings are internal meetings, hiring projects like the careers page in the sample, client calls and training sessions.
Is Japanese speech to text free in NoteOwl?
Yes, for dictation. Speaking Japanese 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 Japanese, into any app
- FreeUnlimited
- ProUnlimited
- Voice notes
- FreeUnlimited
- ProUnlimited
- Japanese meetings, with no bot joining
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Imported Japanese recordings
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Summaries, action items and Chat
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Custom vocabulary
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Read and export your own transcripts
- FreeYes
- ProYes
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Dictation in Japanese, into any app | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Voice notes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Japanese meetings, with no bot joining | No | Yes |
| Imported Japanese recordings | No | Yes |
| Summaries, action items and Chat | No | Yes |
| Custom vocabulary | No | Yes |
| Read and export your own transcripts | Yes | Yes |
FAQ
Questions about Japanese transcription
Is Japanese dictation free?
Yes. Japanese dictation and voice notes are free, however much you use them: tap fn, speak, tap fn again, and the Japanese text is typed where your cursor is. Pro, $79 once for one Mac, adds meetings, imports, summaries, chat and memory, and the 7-day trial in the app takes no card.
Does Japanese transcription work offline?
Yes, the recognition runs on the Mac. One caution: your first dictation on Auto-detect and your first import can each download a part of the model not yet on disk, so try both once with Wi-Fi on. Then it works with no connection.
Does NoteOwl detect Japanese automatically?
Imported audio and video, always. Dictation and meetings, only while Spoken language reads Auto-detect; with English pinned, you won’t get kana or kanji.
Can I import a Japanese recording?
Yes, with Pro or during the trial. An interview, a seminar or a call saved as m4a, mp3, wav or mp4 can be dropped onto Transcripts or opened with Import Recording. The Japanese transcript is produced on your Mac, with speakers separated.
Does it work for meetings in Japanese?
Yes, with Pro. There is no bot to explain to a client: NoteOwl records from your Mac’s own microphone and audio. After the meeting you get the Japanese transcript by speaker, a summary and action items, the raw material for 議事録.
How accurate is NoteOwl in Japanese?
91.4% of characters matched on the sample, punctuation and spaces excluded. The misses were homophones and words dropped in fast exchanges; check those first, and try your own recordings during the trial.
Related
- All 34 languages The languages NoteOwl understands, grouped by region.
- Free speech to text for Mac Tap fn in any app, talk, and the words type at your cursor.
- Transcribe audio to text Import a recording and get a transcript with speakers and a time on every line.
- AI meeting notes without a bot Record calls from your Mac, with nothing joining the meeting.
- Offline AI meeting notes Transcripts, summaries and Chat with no internet connection.
- Korean speech to text Hear a Korean sample and read NoteOwl’s transcript of it.
- Chinese speech to text Hear a Chinese sample and read NoteOwl’s transcript of it.
- Hindi speech to text Hear a Hindi sample and read NoteOwl’s transcript of it.
Keep exploring
More languages
- Korean speech to textKorean dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
- Arabic speech to textArabic dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
- Chinese speech to textChinese dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
- Hindi speech to textHindi dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
Dictation, meetings and recordings
- Free dictation into any appFree, unlimited speech to text in every app on your Mac: tap fn, talk, and the words type at your cursor; one tap polishes them in the right tone for that app
- Audio to textTranscription software for your Mac: drop in an audio or video file and get a speaker-labelled transcript with timestamps, unlimited, with nothing uploaded
- AI meeting notes without a botHow NoteOwl records calls from your Mac with no bot joining, and what you get when the call ends
Free tools
- Japanese audio to textTranscribe a Japanese recording free in your browser, with the language set to Japanese; text, SRT, VTT or Word; nothing is stored
- Japanese subtitle generatorMake Japanese subtitles from a video or recording free in your browser, with the language set to Japanese; SRT, VTT or text; nothing is stored
- Translate subtitles to JapaneseTranslate SRT or VTT subtitles into Japanese free in your browser: every cue keeps its number and times; nothing is stored
Transcribe Japanese on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
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