VSCode extension voice input forces English transcription, ignoring pt-BR system locale
Description
The voice input button (microphone icon) in the Claude Code VSCode extension transcribes Portuguese (pt-BR) speech as English, producing gibberish output. The extension provides no configuration option to change the speech-to-text language.
Steps to reproduce
- Install Claude Code extension v2.1.140 on Windows 11
- Confirm system locale is pt-BR (via
Get-Culturein PowerShell — returnspt-BR) - Click the microphone button in the Claude chat input
- Speak any sentence in Portuguese
- Observe: transcription comes back as broken English
Example of actual output when speaking Portuguese:
"Hey, is it you now in Tenderl? Brookie. Burkendo printchi coaching v a. alioclaudge coach"
(Portuguese phonemes are being force-mapped to English words.)
Expected behavior
Any of the following would solve this:
- Auto-detect language from speech
- Respect Windows system locale (
pt-BRin this case) - Expose a
claudeCode.voiceInputLanguagesetting in the extension configuration
Actual behavior
Transcription is always forced to English. Non-English phonemes are mapped to English words, producing nonsensical output that's unusable.
Environment
- OS: Windows 11 Pro
- Claude Code VSCode extension: 2.1.140 (latest as of report)
- Windows system language: pt-BR
- Windows speech services: pt-BR installed and working
Settings reviewed
I checked all 13 settings exposed by the extension — none relate to voice, language, or locale:
claudeCode.environmentVariables
claudeCode.useTerminal
claudeCode.allowDangerouslySkipPermissions
claudeCode.claudeProcessWrapper
claudeCode.respectGitIgnore
claudeCode.initialPermissionMode
claudeCode.disableLoginPrompt
claudeCode.autosave
claudeCode.useCtrlEnterToSend
claudeCode.preferredLocation
claudeCode.enableNewConversationShortcut
claudeCode.enableReopenClosedSessionShortcut
claudeCode.hideOnboarding
claudeCode.usePythonEnvironment
Workaround currently in use
Using Win + H (Windows native dictation) which respects pt-BR locale correctly. Works fine, but defeats the convenience of the integrated extension mic button.
Impact
Non-English speakers cannot effectively use the voice input feature. This affects users speaking Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and any other non-English language — likely a large portion of the international user base.
Suggested fix
Add a configuration option:
"claudeCode.voiceInputLanguage": {
"type": "string",
"default": "auto",
"enum": ["auto", "en-US", "pt-BR", "es-ES", "fr-FR", "de-DE", "it-IT", "ja-JP", "zh-CN", "ko-KR"],
"description": "Language for voice input transcription. 'auto' attempts to detect from speech or fall back to system locale."
}
Either auto-detection or an explicit selector would solve the issue.
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Happy to provide additional logs or test fixes. Thanks!
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