Speaking instead of typing

There is a microphone next to the send button. Tap it to start, tap it again to stop, and what you said appears in the message box.

It lands in the box rather than being sent. Transcription is wrong often enough that posting it straight through would put a misheard sentence in front of somebody, and if you are learning, seeing what you actually said is half the value.

If you have set a language you are studying, that is what it expects to hear, which sharpens a short or noisy recording. It is a hint and not a filter, so an English word in the middle of a Japanese sentence still comes through.

Any message in the language you are studying can be read aloud, and so can any word you saved. Reading a language is not hearing it, and a learner who has only ever read a word has learned half of it.