Tuesday 15 August 2017

Google announces voice support for 30 new languages including eight Indian languages


Google's voice search in India is currently available in English and Hindi, and now the search giant is adding eight more languages. In addition to English and Hindi, Google is adding Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu to this list.

Apart from eight Indian languages, Google also expanded the supported language list for other parts of the world as well, taking the total of Google's speech recognition to 119 languages. These include the the ancient Gerogian language, and Africa's widely used Swahili and Amharic among others. Here's the complete list of newly added language:
  • Amharic (Ethiopia)
  • Armenian (Armenia)
  • Azerbaijani (Azerbaijani)
  • Bengali (Bangladesh, India)
  • English (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania)
  • Georgian (Georgia)
  • Gujarati (India)
  • Javanese (Indonesia)
  • Kannada (India)
  • Khmer (Cambodian)
  • Lao (Laos)
  • Latvian (Latvia)
  • Malayalam (India)
  • Marathi (India)
  • Nepali (Nepal)
  • Sinhala (Sri Lanka)
  • Sundanese (Indonesia)
  • Swahili (Tanzania, Kenya)
  • Tamil (India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia)
  • Telugu (India)
  • Urdu (Pakistan, India)

Native speaker of these language, will be able to use voice commands to get answers/results for their queries on Gboard (keyboard app) on Android as well as in Search through the Google App. In order to perform a voice-based search, users will have to go to settings in the Google Search app, and select the language in the Voice settings menu (tap the top-left menu and go to Settings, then pick Voice and select your language).

The addition of new languages on Gboard will enhance voice typing on the popular keyboard app, helping users to respond to emails on the go and send texts within messaging apps. To enable Voice Typing in your keyboard, install Gboard from the Play Store and pick your language (press the G in the suggestion strip and select the Settings wheel). Once done, user can tap the microphone icon, and start speaking.

Google says it worked with native language speakers to collect the speech samples, by asking them to read common phrases to understand. This process trained Google's machine learning models to understand the sounds and word of the new languages, but also improved the accuracy of the search. The search giant also mentioned that the voice search will get better with time, as more and more native speakers are making use of the product. 

The newly supported language will also be available across other Google apps and products including Translate.

Source 1 | 2

No comments:

Post a Comment