Every speech recognition model has blind spots. Technical terms, library names, acronyms, and project-specific vocabulary are rarely in the training data. The result: your dictation tool produces gibberish when you say the words you use most.
Whisperer's personal dictionary fixes this. Add a term once, and it's recognized correctly every time.
Related: Personal Dictionary Feature, Code Mode, Getting Started Guide. See pricing and all features.
Ready to try voice dictation on your Mac?
Free download. No account required. 100% offline.
Download on the Mac App StoreThe Problem#
Standard Whisper models are trained on general speech data. They handle everyday English well but struggle with:
Common misrecognitions without a personal dictionary:
- "Kubernetes" becomes "Cooper Netties" or "Kuber nettys"
- "useState" becomes "use state" or "you state"
- "PostgreSQL" becomes "post gress Q L" or "post rescue"
- "Tailwind" becomes "tail wind" or "tail wined"
- "Vercel" becomes "versaille" or "verse cell"
- "Supabase" becomes "super base" or "soup a base"
These errors compound fast. If you're dictating code or technical documentation, you'll spend more time correcting misrecognitions than you saved by dictating. A personal dictionary eliminates this problem at the source.
Setting Up Your Dictionary#
Here's what the Dictionary interface looks like in Whisperer:
Dictionary
4867 corrections from 12 packs
Open Personal Dictionary
Open Whisperer from the menu bar and go to Settings > Personal Dictionary. This is where you add and manage custom terms.
Add your first term
Click Add and type the term exactly as you want it to appear when recognized. The spelling you enter is the spelling that gets inserted.
Test it
Hold Fn, speak a sentence using the term, and verify it's recognized correctly. If not, check the spelling in your dictionary and try again.
Add terms as you encounter misrecognitions. Don't try to build a complete dictionary upfront — let real usage guide what needs to be added. Over a few days of use, you'll build a dictionary that covers your entire working vocabulary.
What to Add#
Here are the categories of terms that benefit most from dictionary entries:
Library & Framework Names
React, Next.js, Tailwind, Prisma, Drizzle, Zustand, Zod, tRPC, Vite, Bun, Deno, FastAPI, Django, Flask, Express, NestJS, Svelte, Nuxt, Remix, Astro.
Infrastructure & Services
Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Vercel, Supabase, PlanetScale, Neon, Cloudflare, Hetzner, Fly.io, Railway, AWS, GCP, Azure, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka.
Project-Specific Terms
Your product name, internal tool names, microservice names, API endpoint names, database table names — anything unique to your codebase that a general model won't know.
Team Member Names
Names of colleagues, clients, and stakeholders you frequently mention in messages, emails, and documentation. Unusual or non-English names especially benefit from dictionary entries.
Acronyms & Abbreviations
CI/CD, RBAC, gRPC, OAuth, JWT, SSR, SSG, ISR, CSR, ORM, SDK, CLI, WASM, HIPAA — any acronym you regularly dictate.
Domain Vocabulary
Industry-specific terms: medical terminology if you're in healthtech, financial terms for fintech, legal terms for legaltech. These are rarely in general speech models.
Before and After#
Here's the difference a personal dictionary makes:
“Deploy the next JS app to Vercel with Supabase”
Deploy the next JS app to versaille with super base“Deploy the Next.js app to Vercel with Supabase”
Deploy the Next.js app to Vercel with Supabase“Set up Kubernetes with Terraform on Hetzner”
Set up Cooper Netties with terra form on Hetzner“Set up Kubernetes with Terraform on Hetzner”
Set up Kubernetes with Terraform on HetznerThe difference is stark. With dictionary entries, technical terms are recognized as accurately as common English words.
Pro Tips#
Compound terms: For multi-word terms like "Next.js" or "Fly.io", add the complete term including punctuation. Whisperer will match the spoken form to your written form.
Casing matters in Code Mode. If you add "useState" to your dictionary, it will be recognized with that exact casing when Code Mode is active. For natural language mode, standard sentence casing rules still apply.
Starter List for Web Developers#
Here's a quick-start dictionary you can build from if you work in the JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem:
React
Next.js
TypeScript
Tailwind
Prisma
Zustand
Zod
tRPC
Vercel
Supabase
PostgreSQL
Redis
Vite
Bun
Deno
ESLint
Prettier
Vitest
Playwright
Storybook
Add these as a starting point and expand as you encounter new misrecognitions in your daily workflow.
The Compound Effect#
A personal dictionary gets more valuable over time. Each term you add eliminates a recurring correction, and the time savings compound:
- 10 custom terms — catches the most common misrecognitions
- 25 custom terms — covers your primary tech stack and project vocabulary
- 50+ custom terms — near-perfect accuracy for your entire working vocabulary
Most users find that 25-30 terms cover 95% of their misrecognition issues. It takes about 10 minutes to build and saves hours over weeks of dictation.
Related: Personal Dictionary Feature, Code Mode, Getting Started Guide. See pricing and all features.
Ready to try voice dictation on your Mac?
Free download. No account required. 100% offline.
Download on the Mac App Store