Voice Recipes in 6 Languages: Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic & English
Voice cook mode in 6 languages including Arabic with RTL — Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, English. Native commands, no awkward localization.
If you cook in any language other than English, you've probably noticed how poorly served you are by voice-driven recipe features. Most apps that ship voice cook mode ship it in English and English only. Forktastic ships it in six languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Arabic — and the difference is bigger than the spec sheet suggests.
The six languages
- English — the default. Native phrasing for US, UK, and global-English contexts.
- Spanish — works for Latin American Spanish and Castilian Spanish. The voice picks regional pronunciation based on your locale setting.
- French — France French. Quebec users report it works for them too.
- German — standard High German. Austrian and Swiss German speakers can use it without trouble.
- Portuguese — Brazilian Portuguese by default; European Portuguese pronunciation available in settings.
- Arabic — Modern Standard Arabic. Right-to-left text rendering throughout the app.
How to switch
Settings → Language. Forktastic's language setting controls both UI text and voice cook mode. Switching is instant — no restart, no re-download.
The bilingual cook
The most common multilingual user isn't "I only speak Spanish" or "I only speak French." It's "I cook from English-language recipe blogs but I want to hear the steps in my native language" or "I have recipes in two languages mixed in my library." Forktastic handles both:
- Set the app to Spanish. Voice cook mode reads in Spanish. Recipe content stays in whatever language it was saved in. So an English-imported recipe still has English ingredient names, but the voice navigation commands and step-reading work in Spanish.
- For recipes saved in a language different from your UI language, Forktastic can read the recipe in the recipe's source language while keeping the navigation commands in your UI language. Useful for cooking grandmother's Spanish recipes while you yourself are most comfortable navigating in English.
The commands across languages
The 14 voice commands map natively to each language. Quick reference:
| English | Spanish | French | German |
|---|---|---|---|
| Next step | Siguiente paso | Étape suivante | Nächster Schritt |
| Repeat that | Repetir | Répète | Wiederholen |
| Set a 10 minute timer | Pon un temporizador de 10 minutos | Mets une minuterie de 10 minutes | Stell einen Timer auf 10 Minuten |
| What's next? | ¿Qué sigue? | C'est quoi la suite ? | Was kommt als nächstes? |
| Pause | Pausa | Pause | Pause |
(Full 14-command reference for all six languages is in the voice commands post.)
RTL for Arabic
Arabic is right-to-left. Forktastic's entire UI flips for Arabic locales — ingredient lists right-aligned, navigation gestures mirrored, voice commands work natively in Arabic. This is rare in the recipe-app space and we built it because the bilingual home cook is one of the most underserved users in this category.
What about other languages?
If you want a language we don't yet support, write in. The Forktastic blog supports more locales than the app does (we author in English and auto-translate), but voice cook mode requires per-language work and we add languages based on user demand.
Where to go next
For the voice cook mode pillar guide, voice cook mode pillar. For the 14-command reference, voice commands.