How to Stop Android’s Speech-to-Text From Blocking Swear Words

zulqarnayniNovember 7, 2022Last Updated: November 7, 2022

0 Less than a minute

Speech-to-Text, also called Dictation Mode, is an incredibly useful feature. If only it would let you swear.

By default, Android’s speech-to-text function censors curse words using asterisks. Fortunately for the potty-mouths out there, this is easy to turn off no matter which keyboard your phone uses. Here’s how to allow swear words on Android.

Turn Off Censorship in Samsung Keyboard and SwiftKey

On Samsung phones, default keyboards like Samsung Keyboard and some keyboard applications like SwiftKey use Bixby for dictation, so you actually need to go into Bixby’s settings to change it. However, you won’t find them in the system settings menu.

Get started by opening the speech-to-text feature. To do this, pull up the keyboard in any app and press the microphone to let Bixby start listening.

While the microphone is up, tap the gear icon to open Voice Settings.

In the settings screen, un-check Hide offensive words. Bixby will stop censoring your curse words when you dictate.

Now give it a quick test to make sure it works.

Enable Speech-to-Text Swearing in Gboard

Many phones default to Google’s Gboard. Gboard has a lot of great features, but still censors your curses by default. The method for changing that is different since it uses internal software instead of Bixby for dictation.

First, you need to open the Gboard settings. There are two ways to do this.

Either pull up Gboard in any app and long-press the comma. Tap the gear icon when it pops up.

Alternatively, you can navigate through the Settings menu. Go to Settings > System (or General management) > Languages and input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard.

Now select the Text correction menu, where you will see an option labeled Block offensive words. Toggle this off.

This will also allow Gboard to suggest profanity in its predictive text when you’re typing.

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If you changed your Android Keyboard to a different app, you can still navigate to that app’s settings this way.

Unblock Offensive Words on Android

Once you’ve adjusted these settings, you can carry on swearing like a sailor in dictation mode. Just make sure you double-check the accuracy of how the software transcribes your speech to avoid any unfortunate mishaps!

While you’re in there, you might want to also save yourself some grief by adjusting the autocorrect, so that you can keep your written text flavorful, as well.