How do you say a question mark in talk to text?

Say "question mark" straight after the last word of the question. The software types ? where the cursor is. On the Mac, iPhone, Microsoft Word and Windows voice typing, the English command lists give the same words for this mark, so one phrase works across them. Check the result each time, because the phrase is a spoken command and can be misheard.

Say "question mark" as the last word of the question

Each platform's English command list names the mark the same way. Apple's Mac command table maps the spoken phrase "question mark" to a question mark ¹. Windows voice typing lists the phrase "question mark" for the ? symbol ². Microsoft's English command table for Dictate in Word lists "question mark" as spoken punctuation ³. On iPhone, the command list for Dictation includes question mark among its punctuation commands ⁴.

A question in a message might sound like this: "Are you free on Thursday question mark." The software types "Are you free on Thursday?" If you say the phrase in the middle of a sentence, the question mark appears there, so put it at the end, after the last word.

Pause briefly around the mark

The phrase is short, and the software needs to hear it as a command rather than as part of the sentence. Nuance, the maker of Dragon, tells its users to pause briefly before and after dictating punctuation ⁵. Dragon is not the built-in tool on these platforms, but the advice is the same for a short pause before "question mark" and a short pause after it.

Keep the phrase at the same volume and pace as the rest of the sentence. The pages we read do not say how loudly or how slowly to speak it, so this is advice to test, not a rule.

Automatic question marks can overlap with the spoken one

Some tools also add question marks from your speech. On iPhone, Dictation inserts commas, periods and question marks without a spoken command, in supported languages ⁶.

The pages we read do not say what happens when you say "question mark" and the tool also inserts one. Test this in your app. If it doubles the mark, turn automatic punctuation off in the settings, or leave it on and say no mark. For the full comparison of automatic and spoken marks, see does voice typing add punctuation automatically.

Question marks are the weakest automatic mark

When a tool adds marks on its own, question marks are the ones to check. On the IWSLT 2011 benchmark of TED talks, the best reported question mark score fell from 87.8% on reference text to 63.4% on speech recognition output ^{7 8}. So a question mark you did not say is the mark most worth checking.

These figures come from a benchmark of speeches. They show a pattern, not the error rate of your own dictation. Read your text before you send it.

What to do

1. Dictate the question. Stop after the last word.
2. Say "question mark" in the same voice as the rest of the sentence, with a short pause before and after it.
3. Read the result. Look for the ? and for any doubled mark.
4. If the mark is missing or wrong, fix it with the keyboard. Saying the correction again can also be misheard.
5. If you dictate in a language other than English, check that language's command list. The English tables here do not apply to it.

For the other marks and the new-line commands, read the dictation punctuation guide. To start a new paragraph after the question, read how to start a new paragraph by voice. For the basics of a spoken mark, see the entry on spoken punctuation, and for the wider subject, the dictation overview.

Sources and limits

The command lists were read on 2026-10-16. Google Docs voice typing is not covered here, because its help page did not open during this review. Check the phrase in Google's own help before you rely on it.