Romanian dictation with correct diacritics: what you need to know

Romanian is a “difficult” language for voice recognition, for reasons beyond pronunciation: diacritics, agreements, plural forms, and written numbers. Here’s what to watch for to get texts that don’t need correction.

Ș and ț: comma, not cedilla

The correct letters in Romanian are ș and ț with a comma below. The versions with cedilla (ş, ţ) were used for years due to old computer limitations and still appear in many texts. The eye doesn’t easily spot the difference, but the computer does: a “ţară” with cedilla isn’t found by searching for “țară,” and some fonts display them differently. Zicelo always writes the comma form.

 and î

The orthographic rule: î at the beginning and end of words (and in compounds: “neîncredere”), â inside, plus the forms of “a fi” (sunt, suntem, sunteți). A language model applies the rule from context; a phonetic transcription can’t “hear” the difference between â and î, because it doesn’t exist.

Numbers, dates and amounts

You say “cinci sute de lei,” you want to see “500 de lei.” You say “pe doișpe noiembrie la trei,” you want “on 12 November at 15:00” — or “at 3,” depending on context. Zicelo converts numbers into their usual written form and keeps the preposition “de” where Romanian requires it (“20 de bucăți,” not “20 bucăți”).

Proper names

The most common mistake in any dictation: names of people, companies and products. The solution is the dictionary. Add “Szabó,” “Kaufland,” “Vitamix,” “SeniorERP” once and Zicelo writes them correctly, even if the raw transcription heard “sabo” or “vitamics.” In teams, the shared dictionary does this for everyone.

Mixing with English

In Romanian offices we speak “romgleză”: “trimite-mi un update la deck până la EOD.” Zicelo recognizes both languages in the same sentence and doesn’t “translate” English terms — it leaves them as you said. If you want the whole text in Romanian (or in English), use the command mode: select and say “translate to Romanian.”

Five practical tips

1. Speak in full sentences. The model understands sentence context better than broken words.
2. Don’t dictate punctuation. No need to say “comma” or “period”; just say “new line” or “new paragraph” when you want specific formatting.
3. Correct yourself naturally. “At 3, no, at 4” — Zicelo keeps only the corrected version.
4. Add to the dictionary what you mess up twice. Not ten times.
5. The microphone matters. Headphones with a microphone or your laptop’s mic in a quiet room give much better results than a distant mic in an echoey space.

With these, Romanian dictation comes out ready to send. Try it free.