How to turn off text dictation correction?

I am having similar problems. It appears that some part of the system is trying to be intelligent but getting it seriously wrong. I think this started becoming a major problem with iOS 12, and certainly isn't fixed in iOS 12.1. I find that Notes which I dictate to Siri are often corrupted by this "intelligent" process and I recently observed a friend struggling to get Siri to allow her to send a message to one of her contacts. I'll change the names, but this is what happened. She had a contact set up with first name Georgina and Last Name Smith. Her dictated message was "hi Gina, how are you?" and what Siri came up with was "Hi Smith, how are you?" It's good that the intelligence checks names in Contacts for spelling, but the process seems to be seriously flawed at present.

I have just been doing some more tests and, at the moment, Siri/dictation doesn't seem to be reinterpreting my spoken text at all. It's as if Apple have totally switched off the "intelligent revision". I might just be fooling myself. Oh, I've just noticed, Keezl, that you are running an old version of iOS on your iPhone 6. I'm talking about iOS 12.1 on an iPhone 8. Have you considered upgrading to a later version of iOS? Your iPhone 6 should be capable of running iOS 12, but you probably have a good reason for holding back.

I think my answer might be a little more than what you were asking about. But this is how I fixed dictation on my iPhone and iPad.

Dictation hasn't been working for me. The correct words would appear as I spoke and when I stop the correct words were erased and crap was put in its place. I am dictating this now and although it's better, I still have to go back and fix more than I want to. Dictation is a huge disappointment to me. Apple has dropped the ball on this one. It is a feature that has gotten worse and worse over the years. Apples should be embarrassed.

I spent 4 or 5 hours on this today. I got some improvement. Here is what I did.

1) I had an English and a Spanish keyboard. I deleted the Spanish keyboard. Settings, general, keyboard, keyboards.

2) I made sure the iPhone language was English (US) ONLY. Settings, general, language&region

3) Settings, general, dictionary. Keep only American English and maybe Apple dictionary. This might have been super important.

4) Settings, Siri&search. I made sure language was English ( United States)

5) Settings, general, reset, reset keyboard dictionary. I think this was the setting that did the most good!!!!

6) Settings, Siri & search. I turned off Siri. Settings, general, keyboard, keyboards. I turned off "enable dictation"

7) Then I re-booted end turned back on Siri and "enable dictation".

I don't want to give up my Spanish keyboard and dictionary but I will if it allows me to use my phone properly.

Please let me know if this helped. Please let me know which part might have help the most. This made dictation 70% better. But I think dictation is a huge embarrassment for Apple. I am usually overwhelmed play my iPhone and iPad but the dictation is underwhelming and embarrassing.

MysticSer, thanks for that helpful reply. I'm registered blind and help many other blind and partially sighted iPhone and iPad users to improve their lives with these devices. Dictation has always been a vital tool for us and I share your dismay that it has become increasingly erratic. My personal impression is that it was mostly OK (with some notable exceptions) until iOS 12, but I may be deluding myself. It certainly appears that dictation is applying AI of some kind that isn't up to the task. I spent last week corresponding with Apple Support on issues in Siri Shortcuts (another potentially powerful tool for the blind - if it worked! Apple have now accepted and escalated that issue, so I'm now fired with enthusiasm by your post to do some experimentation on dictation. I can tell you that most of the people I work with have only the English UK and Emoji keyboards, so I suspect that your Spanish keyboard wasn't the culprit. Also, we're obviously having problems with both US and UK English between us, so it's not just a problem with a single region. I'll do some tests on my kit and with some of my trainees and report back in a week or two. Have you tried contacting Apple support about this? I haven't yet, but might if tests yield some clear results.

Thanks again,

Brian

When I specified language to be English (US) it was more of an example and a suggestion to make sure you have only one language specified. That should be your own language.

Make sure you try the reset keyboard dictionary option. That seems important. All the garbage that it thinks it has "learned" can be deleted so that you start fresh.

And the fact that I had multiple dictionary is in multiple languages probably wasn't helping either. It is interesting that there are so many settings four languages in dictionaries. I reset them all.