Google adds voice recognition for 30 languages

Google has yet again made it to headlines today by introducing voice recognition for 30 languages – including Urdu – spoken by cumulative 30 billion people.

With its latest update to Cloud Speech API, Google added support for 30 languages (119 languages now totally supported) because of which features like Voice Search, Translate and Gboard can understand more users. Being available for Android on Gboard, the feature permits users to search for anything on the search engine by speaking in their mother tongue and get the desired results. If the user gets tired of texting, he can just dictate the query and Gboard will automatically convert the voice to text.

Google also can change Roman Urdu to Urdu Script that can make Google type everything in Urdu Script if the text is dictated in Urdu, informs Tech Juice.

For accessing the new feature, the user must contain Gboard application installed and also set as default keyboard. Then, using the keyboard, tap and hold the space bar and select ‘Google Voice Typing’. The next step is to tap on ‘Settings’ icon and go to ‘Languages’. Further, the user would have to deselect English to make the other language as their primary mode of input that can be reversed back to English anytime. Finally, the user would just speak away and Gboard will translate the voice to Urdu Script text.

The feature could also be used to add emojis. The user can say ‘wink emoji’ or ‘smiley emoji’ and Google will do its job.

The objective of introducing the new feature was to celebrate and include different languages spoken all across the globe especially from Asia and Africa region. Various languages are included like Marathi, Malayalam, Swahili, Amharic and much more.

This feature could prove to be useful to support languages in dozens of areas particularly those in emerging markets like in India and Africa, reports Tech Crunch.

The full list of new languages includes the following:

• 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)