Thinking in Hindi and typing prompts in English all day sounds like a small tax. Turns out it’s closer to a full toll booth, paid line by line, on every single prompt. This Reddit user got sick of paying it and shipped a fix instead of just living with it.
The tool is called Maiboli, which means “my language.” The original poster works as an accountant who moved into IT, not a career developer. Built-in dictation on Mac and Windows couldn’t handle Hindi at all. It fell apart even worse the moment a sentence mixed Hindi, English, and Marathi in one breath. That’s just how people actually talk.
The old workaround was brutal: think in Hindi, translate in your head, type English, lose half the meaning along the way. Or open a browser tab and paste a translation back into your editor, for every single prompt.
What’s new
Maiboli listens to whatever language or mix of languages you speak, and drops short, clean English wherever your cursor sits. One shortcut, no browser tab, no copy-paste relay through ChatGPT. It started as a fix for the Claude Code chat box and now runs across ChatGPT, WhatsApp, Slack, email, and Word too.
It handles 55+ languages and mixed-language speech, which is the real test most dictation tools fail. One installer, no extra dependencies, for both Mac and Windows. You get a floating mic button if you like clicking, or a shortcut if you like your hands staying on the keyboard.
The twist
Here’s the part that got me: it’s not just a translator, it’s also a rewriter. Talk the way people actually talk: jump to point one, wander to point three, circle back to point one again. The optional AI rewrite step untangles that mess into ordered, readable English before it lands on the page. This contributor’s team of 20 used it daily for five weeks, over 3,000 dictations, and the total API bill landed under ₹2,500. That’s about one US cent per dictation.
If you’ve tried a paid dictation app before, that price point is the actual news here. Most of those tools bundle a subscription or lock you into one voice model. Maiboli skips that entirely: bring your own key, pick Gemini, Whisper, or Sarvam, and pay only for what you actually dictate.
There’s a second, quieter win buried in the post. This isn’t only a coding tool. The team started using it for regular messages too, and the effect was different than expected.
People stopped sending half-finished English because they weren’t sure how to phrase the rest. Instead they spoke the entire thought in whatever language felt natural, and a complete, readable message showed up in the chat. That’s a workplace communication fix wearing a prompt-engineering costume.
How to try it
- 📥 Grab the installer from the GitHub release, Mac or Windows, no extra dependencies.
- 🔑 Bring your own API key. The default is Gemini, which has a free tier, but Whisper and Sarvam both work too.
- 🎙️ Hit the shortcut or tap the floating mic button, then talk normally, any language, any mix.
- 📋 Watch clean English land wherever your cursor already is, ready to send.
Pro tips
- Test it on a real work sentence first, not a demo phrase. Mixed-language speech is the whole point, so mixing languages is exactly what proves it works.
- If you’re on a team, point coworkers at it for messages, not just prompts. The creator says it fixed half-finished, unsure English messages across the whole team. People now speak the whole thought instead of typing half of it.
- Watch your API spend for the first week to get a real per-dictation cost, then decide if you want a dedicated key.
- Keep in mind this is a young project, currently at version 0.4.3, and setup means generating your own API key before the first run. That’s a five-minute task, not a dealbreaker, but it’s not a one-click download like a typical app store install.
- Also worth knowing before you install: a floating mic button sits on screen if you want it visible. The shortcut works without any window open at all. Pick whichever fits how you already work, since both do the same job underneath.
It’s free, open source, MIT licensed, and built by someone solving their own daily friction, not chasing a market. That’s usually when a tool actually holds up under real use. 🚀
Grab the installer from the source discussion and give it a run on your next Claude Code session.
I think in Hindi but had to type English prompts all day — so I built a free app. Speak in your language (or a mix), clean English appears wherever your cursor is (Mac + Windows)
by u/Dev14101989 in PromptEngineering