Your iPhone and iPad have a built in speech-to-text feature that allows for you to use voice dictation in any App that uses your device’s keyboard. 

It may not be the best choice for those who need to write lengthy emails or create large documents. But, for people who find the on-screen keyboard a bit unruly when typing more than a line or two, however, voice dictation works well enough to skip buying a wireless keyboard for the iPad and make the iPhone a viable alternative to our laptops when composing an email.

Even if you need multiple paragraphs and punctuation, voice dictation can usually handle it.

While voice dictation can be fairly accurate, it isn’t perfect. It is a good idea to give your text a quick read through to check for spelling and punctuation errors before pressing send.

How to use Voice Dictation: 

1. Tap the microphone button on the on-screen keyboard (next to the Space bar). 

2. Start speaking. The device will listen to your voice and turn it into tex as you talk. You can use keywords to insert punctuation (ex: periods, commas, question marks, quotation marks, etc) or paragraph breaks as needed. For a full list of punctuation commands, see below. 

3. When you are finished, stop speaking and tap the on your keyboard. 

4. Make adjustments as necessary with the keyboard. 

Note: Voice dictation is available any time the on-screen keyboard is available, which means no hunting around for it when you really need it. You can use it for text messages, email messages, or just taking notes in your favorite app.

Voice Dictation Keywords

• “Period”: The “.” is the standard way to end a sentence.
• “Question Mark”: “?”
• “New Paragraph”: This keyword phrase starts a new paragraph. Remember to end the previous sentence before beginning the new paragraph.
• “Exclamation Point”: “!”
• “Comma”: “,”
• “Colon”: “:”
• “Semi-Colon”: “;”
• “Ellipsis”: “…”
• “Quote” and “Unquote”: You use these to put quotation marks around words or phrases.
• “Slash”: the “/” symbol.
• “Asterisk”: the “*” symbol.
• “Ampersand”: the “&” symbol, which means “and.”
• “At Sign”: the “@” symbol you find in email addresses.

Note: Voice dictation will automatically add spaces after punctuation that needs it, like periods, commas, and closing quotation marks. 

Source:
Lifewire
Apple