Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
To dictate a hyphen on a Mac, say “defis” (hyphen) and you get “-”; for a dash say “tire” (dash) and you get “–”; for a slash say “kosaya cherta” (slash) and you get “/”. These are 3 commands from Apple's Russian dictation list. In Windows 11 the same signs have their own phrases. Potok (potok.now) has no voice commands: it turns speech into text and places punctuation and capital letters itself.
Mac dictation places a compound word with a hyphen or a fraction with a slash by separate phrases from Apple's Russian list of commands: the hyphen, the dash and the slash each have their own. Before going through the phrases themselves, you need to turn on dictation on the Mac; the steps are described in the article how to dictate text on a MacBook.
How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac
In Apple's Russian list of dictation commands, the phrase for a hyphen is “defis” (hyphen), and you get “-”. The dash has a separate phrase “tire” (dash), and you get “–”, which is a different sign, not a hyphen. For a slash the phrase is “kosaya cherta” (slash), and you get “/”. The backslash “\” in the same list is placed by the phrase “obratnaya kosaya cherta” (backslash). You say the command word in the place of the sign and then dictate the text as usual. Dictation itself is turned on like this: Apple menu → System Settings → Keyboard → the Dictation section → turn it on, then Enable.
In Windows 11 the same signs have their own phrases: “defis” (hyphen) or “znak minus” (minus sign) give “-”, “tire” (dash) gives the long “—”, and “kosaya cherta” (slash) gives “/”. The same Apple list also describes abbreviations, covered in a separate article, abbreviations by voice on a Mac (in Russian).
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| Talkpad | macOS, Windows, Android | 2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial | $6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed) |
| Aqua Voice | macOS, Windows, iOS | Starter: 1000 free words (Avalon model), no card required | $8/mo (Pro, billed yearly); $10/mo (Pro, monthly); $24/mo (Max, billed yearly) | unknown: the website shows payment in USD, and there is a separate purchase through the iOS App Store; acceptance of Russian cards is not confirmed (not confirmed) | cloud (own Avalon model; the country of the data center is not publicly disclosed) (not confirmed) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
| Voice Access in Windows 11 | Windows | free, built into Windows 11 version 22H2 and newer | — | not disclosed | on the device (offline): speech recognition on the device after a one-time download of the language pack; the internet is needed only for the initial language download |
| SpeakFlow | Windows, Web | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 690 ₽/mo (Personal (unlimited)) | rubles directly | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| SpeechPad (voice notepad) | Web (Chrome), Chrome extension, Android, iOS, integration modules for Windows/Mac/Linux | basic voice input in the notepad is free; transcription of audio/video up to 15 minutes is free | 100 ₽/mo (extended mode (integration of voice input with Windows/Linux OS, removal of the 15-minute transcription limit): the amount appears in user comments/reviews, and no exact official price list was found on the site) | yes: Robokassa and bank cards are accepted (for payment from abroad, an alternative site voicenotebook.com with PayPal is mentioned) | not disclosed |
| Molvi | Windows, macOS | free forever, no accounts and no payment | — | not needed: the product is free; voluntary donations are accepted via Telegram Tribute or by card on the website, amounts are not fixed | device (offline; best quality on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise a fast model on the CPU) |
| Spokenly | macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS | local models (Whisper/Parakeet) are free forever with no word limit; connecting your own API keys (BYOK) is also free | $9.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $99.99/yr (Pro, yearly (≈$8.33/mo)) | not disclosed | hybrid: locally on the device (Whisper/Parakeet, free) or in the cloud (GPT-4o Transcribe, Deepgram Nova 3, Soniox and others, via BYOK or Pro) |
| Voco (TsRT) and Laitis: legacy voice input programs for Windows | Windows | Voco: unknown, was a paid product with Basic/Professional/Enterprise versions, there was no free version. Laitis: there is a free version ("free, no ads"), plus a separate paid version which, according to the developers, is distinguished by stable operation | — | not disclosed | Voco: judging by the user manual (2022), Voco's speech recognition historically worked locally on the PC (offline, no internet), which set it apart from modern cloud services, but this is not confirmed on the current site, since the product is not found in the current catalog. Laitis: the laitis.ru site states that speech recognition requires an internet connection, that is, cloud processing |
| Lispr | Windows, macOS | 60 minutes of dictation per week for free; the key features (push-to-talk, translation, dictionary, local history) always stay free, without an account | $7.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $79/yr (Pro, yearly (from $44.90 with regional discounts)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (USA; recognition is done by Groq, Inc.) |
Examples with signs
For example, you say: “IT defis spetsialist, pyatdesyat kosaya cherta pyatdesyat” (IT hyphen specialist, fifty slash fifty). The word “defis” stands between the parts of the compound word, and “kosaya cherta” between the numbers of the fraction.
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- Free
- Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed
- Pro
- Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly
- Payment
- Russian bank cards, rubles
- Where speech is recognized
- cloud, servers in Russia; internet required
Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet. Download: potok.now/download
Where Potok reaches its limit
Potok is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia; it does not work without the internet. It has no voice commands, so “defis” (hyphen) and “kosaya cherta” (slash) are not commands for it. It turns speech into text, places punctuation and capital letters itself and writes numbers as digits. Whoever needs to place a hyphen or a slash by a command is better served by Mac dictation.
Frequently asked questions
Say “defis” (hyphen): this is how the “-” sign is named in Apple's Russian list of dictation commands. The dash has its own phrase “tire” (the “–” sign), and the slash has “kosaya cherta” (the “/” sign).
Potok has no voice commands, so “defis” (hyphen) and “kosaya cherta” (slash) are not commands for it. It turns speech into text, places punctuation and capital letters itself and writes numbers as digits. A hyphen and a slash by command are placed by Mac dictation.
How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac. Versions are available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and the default hotkey is Ctrl+Space; there are no mobile versions. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. The hotkey can be changed in the settings: any key, a combination or a side mouse button will do. Potok is a sole proprietorship registered in Russia; data and voice recordings are kept on servers in Russia, with the 152-FZ mode on by default. For How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac. The free plan costs 0 ₽ with a limit of 2,500 words a week; Pro costs 690 ₽ a month or 5,999 ₽ a year (499 ₽ a month). Here is how Potok works: hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), speak, release — and the finished text is inserted into the active field of any app. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For How to dictate a hyphen and a slash on a Mac you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Check it in one evening
Install Potok, dictate what you usually type and compare. 14 days of full access, no card needed. Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokExisting recordings are transcribed by Potok's Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: send a file or a YouTube, VK Video, RuTube, Instagram or TikTok link and the text arrives in the chat. The Potok subscription removes the limit in the bot too.
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |
Primary sources: support.microsoft.com · support.apple.com · support.microsoft.com · support.apple.com