How do you do voice typing in Hindi on Android?

On Android, the tool to use is Gboard, Google's keyboard. Add the Hindi keyboard, tap the microphone at the top of the keyboard, and speak in Hindi. Gboard has accepted Hindi voice input since August 2017 ¹, so you do not need a separate app. Two limits matter in practice. Hindi is recognized less accurately than English, and the spoken punctuation words Google documents are English. Read the text before you send it, and type the punctuation yourself if it does not come out right.

Set up Gboard for Hindi before you speak

Gboard's voice typing works in any app where you can type, such as Gmail or Keep ². The steps below assume the Hindi keyboard is already on your phone. Menu names change between Gboard versions, so follow the labels on your screen.

1. Add the Hindi keyboard in the Gboard settings under Languages, then select it so the keyboard works in Hindi ³.
2. Open an app with a text field, such as Messages, and tap the field so the keyboard appears.
3. Tap the microphone at the top of the keyboard. When you see "Speak now", speak in Hindi ⁴.
4. Check the text, then correct any words that came out in the wrong script or spelling.

Switch languages from the voice toolbar

If the text comes out in English when you wanted Hindi, check the language in the voice toolbar. In Gboard, you switch languages by tapping the abbreviation at the bottom left, which shows your default language ⁵. If the abbreviation does not offer Hindi, add the Hindi keyboard and try again.

Keep one language per sentence where you can. Mixing Hindi and English in the same sentence can add recognition errors, and our guide to code-switching explains why.

Punctuation: say the English words, or type it

Gboard lists spoken phrases that add punctuation, including period, comma, exclamation point, question mark, new line and new paragraph ⁶. Those phrases are English words, and Google says punctuation phrases might not be available in every language that Gboard voice typing supports ⁷. Do not count on speaking a Hindi punctuation mark.

Hindi sentences end with the daṇḍa (।), a vertical stroke that marks the end of a sentence or line ⁸. You can dictate the words, then add the marks by keyboard. Our guide to dictation punctuation in other languages explains the difference, and the glossary entry on spoken punctuation defines the term.

Gboard's offline voice typing is reported on all devices, but test Hindi before you travel

In February 2025, 9to5Google reported that Gboard for Android features offline voice typing on all devices ⁹. That report does not list languages, so it does not prove that your Hindi works without a signal. Test it: turn on airplane mode, speak a paragraph in Hindi, and check the result. Run the same test on a good connection first, so you have a baseline to compare with.

Hindi recognition is less accurate than English

Google has not published a Hindi error rate for Gboard that we could find, so the best public comparison comes from benchmarks of other systems. On the FLEURS benchmark, Whisper large-v2 had a word error rate of 21.5 percent for Hindi ¹⁰, against 4.2 percent for English ¹¹. A 21.5 percent rate means about one word in five was wrong. That is a different system from Gboard, so the figure shows the range, not what your phone will score. Word error rate is the measure used.

Accuracy also depends on what you say. Our Hindi voice typing guide sets out the research on accents and named entities.

It depends on your phone, your app and your speech

• Gboard is not your keyboard: Check which keyboard you are using before you assume a voice problem.
• You dictate in a noisy place: Expect more errors. Move closer to the phone or dictate in a quieter room.
• You need Hindi punctuation: Dictate the words, then add the Hindi marks by keyboard.
• You want Hindi on a computer: The steps are different. See the question on Hindi voice typing on a computer.

Checklist before you rely on Hindi voice typing on Android

1. Add the Hindi keyboard, select it, and confirm the voice toolbar shows Hindi.
2. Dictate a 100-word test paragraph with your usual names and terms.
3. Turn on airplane mode and repeat the test.
4. Read the output for errors in names, Hinglish words and punctuation.
5. If the error rate is too high for your work, compare other options with the question on free Hindi speech to text.

For the wider subject, see our overview of Hindi voice typing and the languages overview. Speed is a separate question: the question on how to type faster in Hindi covers the keyboard side.