New in OS X: Get MacRumors Push Notifications on your Mac

Resubscribe Now Close

Siri's Multiple Language Support Still Its Biggest Strength Over Other Virtual Assistants

Thursday March 9, 2017 2:24 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Reuters published an article on Thursday that reveals some of the painstaking work that goes into making Siri capable of speaking additional languages, which remains one of its biggest strengths over rival virtual assistants.

The behind-the-scenes look appears amid claims that Apple has squandered its lead in the voice-assistant space, with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all advancing the features of their respective assistants recently.

But for a smartphone market in which most sales are outside the U.S., Siri's big advantage over the other assistants is underlined in the number of languages it can speak. Microsoft is said to have an editorial team of 29 people who work to customize Cortana for local markets, while Google and Amazon say they plan to add more languages soon. But it's a game of catch-up: Apple already has 21 languages, localized for 36 countries. That compares favorably to Microsoft's Cortana (eight), Google Assistant (four), and Amazon's Alexa (two).
At Apple, the company starts working on a new language by bringing in humans to read passages in a range of accents and dialects, which are then transcribed by hand so the computer has an exact representation of the spoken text to learn from, said Alex Acero, head of the speech team at Apple. Apple also captures a range of sounds in a variety of voices. From there, a language model is built that tries to predict words sequences.

Then Apple deploys “dictation mode,” its text-to-speech translator, in the new language, Acero said. When customers use dictation mode, Apple captures a small percentage of the audio recordings and makes them anonymous. The recordings, complete with background noise and mumbled words, are transcribed by humans, a process that helps cut the speech recognition error rate in half.
Once the required amount of data has been gathered and a voice actor has recorded the Siri responses in a new language, Siri is released with answers to what Apple believes will be the most common questions. Siri then learns more about what users ask, with additional tweaks made via updates every two weeks.

The drawback to Apple's script-writing approach is that it does not scale, according to Charles Jolley, creator of an intelligent assistant named Oslo. "You can't hire enough writers to come up with the system you'd need in every language. You have to synthesize the answers," he told Reuters. "That's years off."

But it's something the founders of Viv – Siri's original creators – are actively working on. "Viv was built to specifically address the scaling issue for intelligent assistants," said Dag Kittlaus, the CEO and co-founder of Viv, which was acquired by Samsung last year. "The only way to leapfrog today's limited functionality versions is to open the system up and let the world teach them."

Consumers should soon get a taste of how far they've come. Viv technology will power Bixby, Samsung's new virtual assistant, set to feature in the Galaxy S8, which launches at the end of this month.

Tag: Siri Guide
[ 129 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
Scottsoapbox
32 months ago
Siri: misunderstanding you in 21 languages.
Rating: 24 Votes
Avatar
Galatian
32 months ago
That's why when I totally naturally task Siri to "Weck mich um neun" (wake me up at nine) it will ask me in return "Welchen Weg möchtest du gehen?" (Which way do you want to go?)

Siri is pisspoor in German imho. You have to very presicely use keywords in order for Siri to recognize what you what. Speak naturally to it my ass.
Rating: 21 Votes
Avatar
Nozuka
32 months ago
more like it's only strength ;)
Rating: 20 Votes
Avatar
thasan
32 months ago
Improves every two weeks?
I only use four / five commands to Siri.
And apart from setting alarm, it usually makes silly mistakes in interpreting what I am asking for even though I have been repeating the same requests for the past 2 year!
Rating: 16 Votes
Avatar
allenvanhellen
32 months ago
I want to be able to speak in multiple languages in the same sentence. This is necessary for asking Siri to send a text message -- maybe in a foreign language -- to friends with foreign names, or to ask for directions in a foreign country.
Rating: 16 Votes
Avatar
longofest
32 months ago
So, what we're saying is Siri may be a multilingual idiot, but at least she's multilingual.
Rating: 15 Votes
Avatar
Jnesbitt82
32 months ago
The problem is, Siri isn't as capable as some of its competitors. In that regard, Siri has less to do. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Siri is able to master more languages over the fewer task that it can do. Hopefully, all of the R&D Apple has been doing and investing in these past few months will help Siri become what it was intended to be all along.
Rating: 13 Votes
Avatar
vertical smile
32 months ago

Siri's big advantage over the other assistants is underlined in the number of languages it can speak.


So, Siri can use many different languages to refer the user to the internet for answers to simple questions/requests.

This gets so annoying. I once thought Siri was a great feature that would only get better. Now it seems Siri hardly evolved over the years, and just make me frustrated with my iPhone.

And, if you have only a bar of service, then it hardly works, but takes about 30 seconds to let you know it has a problem and try again later.

Maybe it will get better.
Rating: 13 Votes
Avatar
KeyMs92
32 months ago
I salute the fact that Siri is available in so many languages, but Dutch Siri still sucks at English titles. As a result, I'm forced to set it to English just to play songs via Apple Music.

I wish I could set Siri to multiple languages. :/
Rating: 11 Votes
Avatar
jhfenton
32 months ago

I salute the fact that Siri is available in so many languages, but Dutch Siri still sucks at English titles. As a result, I'm forced to set it to English just to play songs via Apple Music.

I wish I could set Siri to multiple languages. :/

I want to be able to speak in multiple languages in the same sentence. This is necessary for asking Siri to send a text message -- maybe in a foreign language -- to friends with foreign names, or to ask for directions in a foreign country.

This is my biggest annoyance. I have an iTunes catalog full of English and French music. One or the other is always inaccessible via Siri ("Hey Siri, play Corbeau by Coeur de Pirate." --> "Play Corbo by good to be hot." --> "I'm sorry, I can't find Corbo in your music.")

Likewise, if I run Siri in French, I cannot text my wife in English (or Spanish) while I'm driving.
Rating: 8 Votes

[ Read All Comments ]