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claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix VS Code extension voice dictation ignores `language` setting — French audio is decoded as English gibberish [1 participants]

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anthropics/claude-code#52384•Fetched 2026-04-24 06:08:37
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Voice dictation works correctly in the CLI with "language": "french" set in ~/.claude/settings.json — French speech is transcribed accurately.

However, the microphone button in the VS Code extension panel ignores this setting. When speaking French, the transcription engine decodes the audio as if it were English, producing nonsensical English text ("gibberish") that bears no relation to what was actually said.

Importantly, this is not a case of "French transcription returned in English translation" — it's the underlying speech model being run with the wrong language hint, so it tries to find English phonemes in French audio and outputs whatever it guesses.

Root Cause

The transcription is English-looking gibberish because the model is still using English as its target language.

Code Example

{
     "language": "french"
   }
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Summary

Voice dictation works correctly in the CLI with "language": "french" set in ~/.claude/settings.json — French speech is transcribed accurately.

However, the microphone button in the VS Code extension panel ignores this setting. When speaking French, the transcription engine decodes the audio as if it were English, producing nonsensical English text ("gibberish") that bears no relation to what was actually said.

Importantly, this is not a case of "French transcription returned in English translation" — it's the underlying speech model being run with the wrong language hint, so it tries to find English phonemes in French audio and outputs whatever it guesses.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Configure ~/.claude/settings.json: 
    {
  "language": "french"
}
  2. Open VS Code with the Claude Code extension panel
  3. Click the microphone icon in the prompt box
  4. Speak a French sentence, e.g. "Est-ce que tu comprends le français ?"
  5. Observe the transcription inserted into the prompt

Expected behavior

Same behavior as CLI: French speech is transcribed as French text.

Actual behavior

The transcription is English-looking gibberish because the model is still using English as its target language.

Reverse test confirms the diagnosis:

  • Speaking "Do you speak English?" → correctly transcribed as English text
  • Speaking "Est-ce que tu comprends le français ?" → outputs garbled English approximation

So the audio pipeline works, the transcription service responds, but the language parameter from ~/.claude/settings.json is not propagated to the VS Code extension's microphone flow.

CLI comparison

Running claude in the VS Code integrated terminal with the exact same ~/.claude/settings.json and speaking the same French sentences → transcription in French is correct. So this is a bug specific to the extension's code path, not a general configuration issue.

Environment

  • Claude Code VS Code extension version: 2.1.118
  • VS Code version: 1.117.0
  • OS: Windows 11
  • Auth: Claude.ai account
  • No ms-vscode.vscode-speech extension installed (confirmed — this is Claude Code's native voice dictation, not a third-party integration)
  • ~/.claude/settings.json contains "language": "french"

extent analysis

TL;DR

The VS Code extension's microphone flow likely needs to be updated to respect the language setting from ~/.claude/settings.json.

Guidance

  • Verify that the ~/.claude/settings.json file is being read correctly by the VS Code extension by checking for any file access or parsing errors.
  • Check the extension's code to ensure it is passing the language setting to the transcription service.
  • Consider adding logging or debugging statements to the extension's code to confirm the language setting is being applied correctly.
  • Review the extension's documentation to see if there are any known issues or workarounds related to language settings.

Example

No code snippet is provided as it would require more information about the extension's internal implementation.

Notes

The issue seems to be specific to the VS Code extension and not a general configuration issue, as the CLI version works correctly with the same settings.

Recommendation

Apply a workaround by manually passing the language setting to the transcription service in the extension's code, if possible, until an official fix is released.

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FAQ

Expected behavior

Same behavior as CLI: French speech is transcribed as French text.

#api#ssr#cache error#pipeline error#runtime error

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claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix VS Code extension voice dictation ignores `language` setting — French audio is decoded as English gibberish [1 participants]