How do you voice type in Urdu?

To voice type in Urdu, start with Gboard on Android. Google announced voice input for Urdu in 2017, along with seven other Indian languages ¹. On Windows 11, Urdu is not on the built-in voice typing list ², so Windows users need another tool. Urdu is recognized less accurately than English on the same benchmark, so check every passage before you rely on it.

Google announced Urdu voice input in 2017

In August 2017, Google said it was bringing voice input to eight Indian languages, including Urdu ¹. Google also said speakers of the newly added languages could use their voice to dictate, including in search through the Google app ³. Check that Urdu is among your Gboard languages, then choose it in the voice toolbar. Google's Gboard guidance says you switch languages from the abbreviation at the bottom left of the voice toolbar ⁴.

Windows 11 voice typing does not list Urdu

Windows 11 voice typing supports Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Marathi and Italian (Italy) in the list we read ⁵. Urdu is not in that list. Microsoft's Azure Speech locale table does include Urdu (India), code ur-IN ², so Urdu support is available through Azure-based apps and not through the built-in Windows feature.

Urdu is recognized less accurately than English

On the FLEURS benchmark, Whisper large-v2 had a word error rate of 22.6 percent for Urdu ⁶. English on the same model was 4.2 percent ⁷. Results vary widely across Indian languages on this benchmark. The same model scored 17.5 percent for Tamil ⁸ and 99.0 percent for Telugu ⁹.

Whisper's language list includes Urdu, with the code ur ¹⁰, so developers can use Whisper-based tools for Urdu. Support is not accuracy, so test any tool with your own speech. The Whisper languages guide explains how the results were measured.

Urdu to English is a separate, harder step

Some people want Urdu speech turned into English text. That is speech translation, which is a second step after recognition, and its errors add up ¹¹. For Hindi, Whisper large-v2 scored 22.0 BLEU when translating into English on the FLEURS read-speech test ¹². Expect the English to need editing. For the workflow, read the question on Hindi voice typing to English, which applies the same two steps to Urdu.

Mixed Urdu and English needs its own care

Urdu speech can mix in English words. Research on code-switching finds that the shortage of annotated code-switched audio makes recognition harder, even when each language is well resourced ¹³. Dictate one language per sentence where you can, and check any English terms in the output.

What to do in practice

Start with Gboard on Android or a Whisper-based tool on a computer, dictate a short passage, and read it back. Look for missed words, and for names in particular. In the LAHAJA study on Hindi, recognition declined especially for names and specialized terms ¹⁴. Keep the Urdu transcript as the source, and translate only after you have checked it.

For the wider set of Indian languages and the Hindi options, see the Hindi voice typing guide.