14 DAY TRIAL // Hot on the heels of news regarding the availability of Google Maps Navigation in more countries than the US and the UK comes another announcement aimed at mobile phone users: Google Search by Voice just learned a few more languages. Initially available in English, followed by Mandarin Chinese and Japanese a while ago, Google Search by Voice now can understand French, German, Italian, and Spanish, if you're using the right accent of course.
“Our goal is to bring Google Search by voice to speakers of all languages. We follow a rigorous process to add each new language or dialect. Working directly with native speakers in each country, we spend weeks collecting spoken utterances to create the specific models which power the service. Our helpers are asked to read popular queries in their native tongue, in a variety of acoustic conditions such as in restaurants, out on busy streets, and inside cars. We also construct, for each language, a vocabulary of over one million recognizable words. It’s no small feat, but we love doing it,” Google notes in a Google Mobile Blog post.
One thing that users should be aware of is that the new language model has been designed to work with accents from Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. In case one uses it with a different accent, things might not go as well as expected. The new languages are available for users of an Android 2.1 or higher device, as well as for the owners of an iPhone or BlackBerry handset. On Android, having Quick Search Box already installed would require tapping the microphone icon to search by voice. As for iPhone and BlackBerry, in case Google Mobile App was previously installed, the new languages can be selected from the settings panel.
“If you have Android 1.6 or 2.1 (Donut or Eclair), and you have already installed the Search by voice application, starting later today voice search will return recognition results for French, German, Italian or Spanish if your phone has one of those languages chosen in ‘Language and keyboard’ settings. If you do not have the Search by voice application, you can install it from Android Market on your phone - search for ‘voice search‘. This application is only available in the Android Markets for France, Germany, Italy and Spain,” the aforementioned blog post continues.
iPhone users that do not have Google Mobile App installed would have to head over to the Apple App Store to download it. m.google.com is the destination for BlackBerry and Nokia S60 users willing to try out the solution, straight via the browser on their handsets.