Written and checked by The Sada Team · How we check

Daily Dictation and Sada: type the line, then say it

Daily Dictation is a listen-and-type site: you hear a sentence, type it, then check and correct it, across more than 1,000 exercises and exam listening sets. Sada is the speaking step after it: you say a line from any captioned YouTube video, free with no account, and it shows which words came across and your timing; it does not grade individual sounds.

Try one line nowListen to one short line, record your take, then play it beside the original. Free, with no account.

Last checked: 3 October 2026. Prices and limits change; confirm them on the tool’s own site or in your country’s store.

Is Daily Dictation free?

Mostly. Its home page answers “Is this program free?” with “Yes, it’s 100% FREE!”, and you can start a lesson without an account: the first short story we opened said “You’re not logged in yet, your progress will not be saved!” Not every lesson is open, though. A later short story said “You must upgrade your account to practice this exercise.” The price of that upgrade on the website is not stated on the pages we read.

Its iPhone app, “Daily Dictation English”, is a free download with PRO in-app purchases on the US App Store: $2.99 a month, $6.99 for 3 months, $14.99 for 6 months or $19.99 for life (3 October 2026). Whether these are the same as the website upgrade is not stated on the pages we read.

Daily Dictation vs Sada

Compared on	Daily Dictation	Sada
Main exercise	Dictation: listen to the audio, type what you hear, then check and correct. Its home page then suggests reading the sentence out loud	Saying a line: shadow or repeat it, record, and play your take beside the speaker. Also Type it: type one line and check it word by word before saying it
What you practise	More than 1,000 exercises by topic: short stories, conversations, stories for kids, numbers, spelling names, IPA, and videos from YouTube, the news and TED, labelled from A1 to C2	Any YouTube video with usable captions, or a pasted transcript, SRT or VTT file; a library of famous talks by level
Exam listening	TOEIC (600 lessons), IELTS (360), TOEFL (54) and Medical English for the OET (80), per its exercise list	No exam sets
Checking your speaking	We found no recording or speech check on the pages we read; it suggests reading aloud on your own	Which words were recognised or missed, and your timing against the speaker; not individual sounds; its percentage counts the words it recognised, not how good your pronunciation is
Account	Not needed to start; without one your progress is not saved, and some lessons ask you to upgrade	Not needed; your recordings and progress stay on your device
Price	The website calls itself 100% free, but some lessons need an upgrade whose price is not stated on the pages we read. iPhone app PRO from $2.99 a month or $19.99 for life (US App Store)	Free, no paid plan
Where	Website, plus apps for iPhone and Android linked from its home page	Any modern browser, phone or computer; no store app
Arabic interface	Not on the pages we read: the site is in English, and its App Store listing lists English only	Yes

When Daily Dictation is the better choice

If your goal is listening and spelling, Daily Dictation is the better choice. Typing every word makes you notice the small words, endings and spellings that reading lets you skip, and its library is far bigger than anything Sada has for dictation: more than 1,000 exercises by topic and level, with TOEIC, IELTS, TOEFL and OET listening sets. Sada’s Type it mode checks one line at a time from a video you choose, with no course and no exam sets.

When Sada is the better choice

If you can already type the sentence but have never said it. Reading aloud on your own gives you no way to tell whether a listener would catch every word. In Sada you say the line, see which words came across and how your timing compares with the speaker’s, and play your take beside the original, free, with no account, on any captioned YouTube video, with your recording kept on your device. It does not grade individual sounds, and its percentage counts only the words it recognised. Dictation or shadowing: what each trains.

Using both

Do a Daily Dictation exercise as usual: listen, type what you hear, then check and correct.
Open a line in Sada: one of the three below, or a line from a captioned YouTube video like the one you just typed.
Listen once, then say the line after the speaker in Repeat mode.
Record a take, see which words came across, and play it beside the original.
Fix one thing, say the line again, then go back to typing the next one.

Typing trains the ear and spelling; saying the line trains the mouth. Sada can also do both on one line: type it, check it, then press Record this line.

Try Sada on one line

Open the free recording exercise

The exercise opens on one short, slow line at 02:20.0: “You don't need to speak fast.” Listen to it, record your version, then open Compare and play your take beside the original.

Free, with no account and no paid plan. Recordings stay on your device.

Three real lines: type them, then say them

“Could be book, could be DVDs, could be courses, could be anything.”
Josh Kaufman · 10:38 · Practise this line →
Typing it checks that you caught “could be” four times and spelled “could” with its silent L. Saying it checks something typing cannot: whether you keep the beat of the repeated phrase.

“No one was over five foot five.”
William McRaven · 2:03 · Practise this line →
Seven short words you can type in seconds. Said at the speaker’s speed, “five foot five” blurs easily; record it and see whether every word came across.

“How can you get fired from a company you started?”
Steve Jobs · 6:09 · Practise this line →
A question in which “fired from” and “a company” run together. Type it first if you like, then say it and match where the speaker’s voice rises and falls.

Other comparisons

Sources

Checked 3 October 2026: dailydictation.com (free wording, exercise count, method, apps), Daily Dictation exercises (topics, levels, exam sets), a free lesson (guest progress), a locked lesson (upgrade needed), Daily Dictation English on the App Store (PRO prices, devices, language). Prices and limits change; check the tool’s own site or your own store.

Practise one line, step by step

Open an exercise from this guide. Choose a captioned video and a line whose meaning you understand.
Listen and read the caption, then say the line after the speaker in Repeat mode.
Try saying the line with the speaker in Shadow mode, following the rhythm and pauses.
Record a take, then open Compare and play your recording and the original. Review words and timing; Sada does not grade individual sounds.
Repeat the line while focusing on one difference you heard, then move to another line.

Questions people ask

Is Daily Dictation free?

Its home page says “Yes, it’s 100% FREE!”, and you can start lessons without an account. Some lessons ask you to upgrade your account; the website price of that upgrade is not stated on the pages we read. Its iPhone app sells PRO from $2.99 a month or $19.99 for life on the US App Store (3 October 2026). Sada is free with no paid plan.

Does Daily Dictation check your speaking?

Its home page suggests reading each sentence out loud after you type it, and says better listening makes speaking easier to improve. We found no recording or speech check on the pages we read. Sada checks a spoken line: which words came across and your timing, not individual sounds.

Can I use Daily Dictation and Sada together?

Yes. Type a passage in Daily Dictation to train your ear and spelling, then say a line in Sada, record it and play it beside the speaker. Typing shows what you did not hear; saying the line shows what you cannot yet say.

Does Daily Dictation need an account?

Not to start: without one, its lessons warn that your progress will not be saved. Some lessons ask you to log in and upgrade. Sada needs no account.

Does Sada have exam practice like Daily Dictation?

No. Daily Dictation lists TOEIC, IELTS, TOEFL and OET listening sets. Sada has no exam sets; it has lines from real talks and any captioned YouTube video you choose.

Is dictation or shadowing better?

They train different things: dictation trains listening and spelling, shadowing trains speaking rhythm and speed. See the page on dictation and shadowing for how to combine them.

Start practising