Tamil voice typing
Tamil voice typing for your PC, in Unicode Tamil.
Tamil voice typing on a computer usually means a detour: learning Tamil99, typing phonetically in English letters and fixing the guesses, or dictating on your phone and sending the text to yourself. VocalFlow is a free app for Windows and Mac that takes spoken Tamil and pastes Unicode Tamil text straight into the app you are working in.
Hold the key, speak, let go, and the sentence is there: in Gmail, WhatsApp Web, Word, Google Docs or a form in the browser. Speak Tanglish and it can keep it as Tanglish in Roman letters, or rewrite it fully in Tamil.
Tamil, Tanglish and 30+ languages · Windows 10/11 and macOS 13+ · Unicode output · Free · MIT licence
Tamil99, phonetic typing, or voice.
Windows already ships three ways to type Tamil. They work well once learned, and they work offline. Voice typing skips the learning, at the cost of needing a connection.
| Tamil 99 keyboard | Phonetic input (Anjal) | Voice typing with VocalFlow | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The layout the Tamil Nadu government approved in 1999, built into Windows as “Tamil 99” | Type Tamil words in English letters and they turn into Tamil; Windows ships Tamil Anjal and Tamil Phonetic | Speak; the text is transcribed and pasted |
| What you learn first | A new key layout | The spelling scheme | One hotkey |
| Output | Unicode Tamil | Unicode Tamil | Unicode Tamil |
| Tanglish | Switch keyboards to type English | Switch input modes to type English | Code-Mix Input keeps Tanglish in Roman letters; Convert to Language gives all-Tamil text |
| Offline | Yes | Yes | No, Deepgram needs a connection |
| Cost | Free, built into Windows | Free, built into Windows | Free app; Deepgram bills per minute after a $200 credit |
Keyboard and input method names from Microsoft’s list for Windows 10 and 11. Tamil99 approval: G.O. (Ms) No.17, Information Technology, 13 June 1999, as cited in Tamil Nadu G.O. (Ms) No.29 of 2010. · Source: Microsoft: keyboards and input methods for Windows
Tanglish in, Tamil out.
Office Tamil and spoken Tamil are not the same, and most of us mix in English. Say it the way you talk, and let the conversion step write it the way a letter should read.
- Language: Tamil
- Deepgram Nova-3 transcribes Tamil (ta). English words you use come back the way you said them.
- Convert to Language: Tamil
- The clean-up model rewrites every word in Tamil: மீட்டிங் becomes கூட்டம். Good for letters and notices.
- Code-Mix Input: Tanglish
- Keeps the mix but writes it in Roman letters, “Naalaikku meeting cancel aagivittathu.”, for chats.
- Needs a clean-up key
- Conversion and Tanglish run on Groq or OpenRouter with your own key. Plain Tamil transcription does not.
Tamil among India’s four big southern languages.
In the 2011 census, 6.9 crore people in India named Tamil as their mother tongue, 5.70% of the population, before counting Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and beyond.
- Telugu
- 8.11 crore
- Tamil
- 6.90 crore
- Kannada
- 4.37 crore
- Malayalam
- 3.48 crore
Persons who returned each language as their mother tongue, India only. The census places these four scheduled languages in the Dravidian family. Tamil: 6,90,26,881 people. · Source: Census of India 2011, Language (C-16)
Tamil voice typing on Windows, step by step.
- 01
Download and run the .exe
It is self-contained, so nothing else needs installing. Windows may warn about an unsigned app the first time: click More info, then Run anyway.
- 02
Open Settings from the tray
VocalFlow sits in the system tray as a microphone icon. Double-click it, or right-click and choose Settings.
- 03
Paste in a Deepgram key
Sign up at deepgram.com (new accounts get $200 of credit), copy an API key, paste it and click Save & Verify.
- 04
Choose Nova-3 and Tamil
Set the model to Nova-3 and the language to Tamil (ta). Deepgram lists Tamil for Nova-3, not for the older Nova-2.
- 05
Hold Right Alt and speak
Click into any text box, hold the key, speak in Tamil, and let go. On a Mac the same steps run from the menu bar, with Right Option as the key.
Before you start on a Windows PC.
Tamil voice to text, where you already write.
VocalFlow pastes into whichever app has your cursor, so the list is really any app where you can paste.
- 01Office
Letters in Word
Office letters, circulars and applications in formal Tamil, using Convert to Language.
- 02School
Worksheets and notes
Teachers drafting question papers and class notes without hunting for letters on Tamil99.
- 03Chat
WhatsApp Web
Family group messages in Tamil script, or in Tanglish if that is how the group writes.
- 04Email
Email to family abroad
Longer emails in Gmail or Outlook to relatives in Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka or the Gulf.
- 05Writing
Stories and poems
First drafts spoken aloud, then edited on the keyboard you already know.
- 06Forms
Forms in the browser
Name, address and remarks fields on Tamil-language portals.
