"Dictée" redirects here. For the book by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, see Dictee. The Dictation Lesson, painting of Demetrio Cosola (1891) Dictation is the transcription of spoken text: one person who is "dictating" speaks and another who is "taking dictation" writes down the words as they are spoken. Among speakers of several languages, dictation is used as a test of language skill, similar to spelling