Microsoft rolls out support for one more language in Cortana

Nov 3, 2014 12:24 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is working on more features for personal assistant Cortana, and just like the company’s executives confirmed recently, improvements are released for internal markets as well.

Cortana today learned to speak Spanish and thanks to a new update, the personal assistant can be used with personalized content by any of the 470 million people who speak this language across the world.

At this point, Spanish is the second most used language worldwide after Mandarin and is currently one of the six official languages of the United States, alongside Arabic, Chinese, English, French, and Russian.

Of course, Microsoft’s decision to make Cortana available in Spanish doesn’t come as a big surprise, but the company is yet to release an announcement on this, so full details will probably be provided in a few days.

Not yet available to all Spanish users

Even though Cortana now knows a new language, the personal assistant is not yet available for all Spanish users and WindowsPhoneapps.es, the first source that reported this update, claims that only a very limited number of Windows Phone owners are capable of seeing its features right now.

As you can see in the adjacent photo, Cortana can provide directions to Spanish users, but there’s no report yet as to other options that might be available in this new version of the personal assistant.

More features for international Windows Phone users

Microsoft has already confirmed that it’s working to bring more features to international Windows Phone users, so this new version of Cortana could actually be part of a much more ambitious plan to keep buyers on the Old Continent fully up to date with such improvements.

Even though Microsoft has only provided vague details until now, it’s pretty clear that the company is working to bring all available versions of Cortana in line with the one in the United States, thus offering users the same capabilities no matter where they live.

At the same time, the software giant is working to make Cortana available in more regions, but also to bring the feature on desktop computer, a thing which according to people close to the development process could happen in spring 2015.

Windows 8.1 Update 2, which could debut anytime soon, might also make Cortana available in more countries, so this new Spanish update might actually be an indication that the release of this pack of improvements is closer than you might think. Of course, no announcement on this release is available right now, but the first devices should get it in just a few weeks.