How is legal dictation done in Hindi and other Indian languages?

Hindi legal dictation uses the same exam format as the English test. A passage is read aloud at a fixed speed, the candidate writes it in Hindi shorthand, and then types a transcript on a computer inside a set time. What changes is the set of numbers: each notice sets its own Hindi shorthand speed, typing speed, transcription time and mistake limit. The figures we checked are not the English ones, and they differ from one notice to the next. Read the notice for your own post and language before you plan your practice.

The guide to legal dictation for shorthand and steno exams covers the English figures. For a short definition of the test itself, see what legal dictation is.

Hindi tests use the English format, with figures set notice by notice

The steps are the same in both languages: a dictation, a shorthand take-down, a computer transcript and a count of mistakes. The notices differ in the numbers. The High Court of Jharkhand's 2013 advertisement requires Hindi stenographer applicants to reach 70 words per minute in shorthand and 35 in typing, with a permitted mistake of 10 percent ¹. Its other advertisement, numbered 03/Admn. Misc., 2013 and closing on 22 February 2014, sets the Hindi shorthand speed at 60 words per minute, with typing at 25 ². The same court set different Hindi speeds in two advertisements, so the figure in your notice is the one that counts.

Neither Jharkhand notice mentions a dictation or transcription time in the text we read, so for those posts you have to plan around the speed and the typing rate alone. The Staff Selection Commission notice is a different kind of exam, for central government stenographers, and we include it because it is the one official notice we opened that gives a Hindi transcription time.

The SSC notice gives Hindi a longer transcription window than English

The Commission's 2016 scheme of test gives 10 minutes of dictation in each language ³. For the Grade C post it allows 40 minutes to transcribe English and 55 minutes to transcribe Hindi ³. The Hindi test is conducted in Mangal font on a Remington or Inscript keyboard ⁴.

Two cautions apply. The table was read from the PDF's extracted text, so the pairing of each time with its column is inferred from the order of the numbers, and a notice with a different layout may pair them differently. The table also has (VH) columns with longer times, which this figure leaves out. Other exams may name other typefaces, so practice in the one your own notice names, not in whatever Hindi font you happen to use.

Hindi typing is set lower than English in the criteria we checked

The CBSE typing criteria set a merit threshold of 35 words per minute for English and 30 for Hindi ⁵. CBSE is a school board, and this is not a steno exam, so the figure shows only how one body sets the two thresholds. In the Jharkhand notices, the Hindi typing requirement fell from 35 to 25 words per minute between the two advertisements ^{1 2}.

Plan typing as a separate target. A candidate who can take down Hindi at the shorthand speed can still fail the typing requirement, because the notices set the shorthand and typing speeds separately.

No source we opened names a Hindi shorthand system

The Jharkhand notices set Hindi shorthand and typing speeds but do not name a system. We found no official source that names the Devanagari shorthand system an exam expects, and we did not find a source that says what a Hindi dictated passage contains. The English notices do not describe their passages either, as the English guide explains, and the practice method works the same way in either language.

Books and PDFs on Hindi legal dictation are easy to find, but a book is not a notice. Use a book for practice passages only if you can check its speed and length against your notice, and treat any claim about what the exam will contain as unverified until the notice says so. For outline lists, see shorthand outlines for legal dictation.

Speech tools are less accurate in Hindi, so check any practice audio

If you practice by voice dictation, expect more errors in Hindi. On the FLEURS read-speech benchmark, the Whisper large-v2 model had a word error rate of 21.5 percent for Hindi ⁶, against 4.2 percent for English in the same table ⁷. That benchmark uses read speech in good audio, so error rates in a real exam room or a noisy practice session are likely to be higher.

Windows 11 voice typing lists Hindi among its supported languages, along with Marathi ⁸. That is useful for drafting Hindi text by voice, but it is not a test of your shorthand, and it does not tell you how the exam will score your transcript.

For other Indian languages, the notices we opened cover Hindi and English only. We give no figures for Marathi, Kannada or other languages, and you should check the notice for the post you are applying for.

What to do

1. Find the notice for your post and language on the court's or commission's site. Note the shorthand speed, typing speed, transcription time, mistake limit and typeface.
2. Practice at the notice's speed with timed audio, starting from the speed in the notice rather than a faster target. The method is in how to practice legal dictation.
3. Type in the typeface and keyboard the notice names. For the 2016 SSC test, that is Mangal on a Remington or Inscript keyboard.
4. Count your mistakes against the allowance in the notice, using the same passage length as the test where the notice gives one.
5. Keep the English figures for English. The speeds in the English guide do not carry over to Hindi.

For the broader set of speed questions, see legal dictation speeds in high court exams. The dictation for work and study hub lists the other guides in this group.