Google adds voice search feature for 8 more Indian languages

Tech giant Google has added voice search capability for eight additional Indian languagesincluding Bengali, Malayalam and Tamil.
Google logo ( IANS)
Google logo ( IANS)

BENGALURU: Google launched voice search in eight Indian languages on Monday. The new languages in which the feature has been introduced include Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. It is available is Hindi also. The feature that has been activated with effect from Monday will allow users to dictate their queries through Gboard on Android and through the Google app. To perform a voice-based search, users have to set their language in the Voice settings menu in Google app, Google said in a statement.

These new languages will be made available in the Cloud Speech API and will soon be extended to other Google apps and products, including the Translate app. Google’s speech recognition now supports 119 language varieties in Gboard on Android, Voice Search, the company said.

Further, the new language support will enhance voice typing on Gboard, helping users to respond to emails on the go and send texts within messaging apps. To enable voice typing, users have to instal Gboard from the Play Store, choose their language from the Settings. and tap the microphone to give voice command, the statement added.

According to Daan van Esch, technical programme manager, speech and keyboard team, the company worked with native speakers to collect speech samples, before bringing out the voice command feature in these additional languages.

“We worked with native speakers to collect speech samples, asking them to read common phrases. This process trained our machine learning models to understand the sounds and words of the new languages and to improve their accuracy when exposed to more examples over time. And voice input will get better as more native speakers use the product,” Esch stated.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com