There’s some good news for users of Google Assistant.
Google today announced it was launching “multilingual support” for the its digital voice assistant Google Assistant, which will enable users to simultaneously jump between 2 different languages across queries, without having to go back to their language settings.
How does it work?
Once a user selects 2 of the Google Assistant supported languages – English, Spanish, French, German, Italian & Japanese – from there on out they can speak to the Assistant in either language, & the Assistant will respond in kind. Previously, users had to choose a single language setting for the Assistant, changing their settings each time they wanted to use another language, but now, it’s a hands-free experience for multilingual households.
Why was this done? Google explained that multilingual households were becoming increasingly common, with several sources indicating that multilingual speakers already outnumbered monolingual counterparts. This number was set to grow further.
With this large & increasing population of multilingual users, it was more important than ever that Google develop products that can support multiple languages simultaneously to better serve our users.
So what’s the next step? Google said now that it had managed to bring in this benefit for bilingual speakers around the globe, it now wanted to make life a little easier for trilingual users, or families that live in homes where more than 2 languages were spoken.
After today’s update, using its advanced Machine Learning (ML) technology, speech & language recognition technologies, & the Google team’s commitment to refine its LangID model, Google was now in the process of teaching Google Assistant how to process more than 2 languages simultaneously. The team was also working to add more supported languages in the future.
Image Credit: Google
