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Apple Hiring Siri Engineers for Additional Language Support

Robert.Walter

Robert.Walter

macrumors 68040
Jul 10, 2012
3,093
4,364
I hope her other pronunciations are better than her German one.

German is a relatively phonetic language with consistent pronunciation rules.

Yet Siri says the German word for street, "Strasse", as though it were spelled "striss"...

Not very refined.
 
S

Snookerman

macrumors 6502
Jul 6, 2008
391
9
I've been waiting for Swedish since it came out. Talking to my phone in English raises some eyebrows.
 
seamer

seamer

macrumors 6502
Jul 24, 2009
426
164
I'll be impressed when it can speak Spouse. IE, Listens to a phrase, determines the gender of the speaker, and reacts on the intended context or the words used.
 
M

macjoshua

macrumors 6502a
Mar 4, 2011
504
555
Nashville, TN
I wish they'd make Siri sound less robotic and more natural. I don't often use Google Maps because I can't set it as the default, but their voice sounds much more realistic.
 
M

mrmali

macrumors member
Jun 12, 2014
35
0
Siri Engineerinng Job

I have made a application to Apple for Siri Engineering development program for improving Turkish language for Siri i hope they apply me for that job :)
 
Swift

Swift

macrumors 68000
Feb 18, 2003
1,828
964
Los Angeles
RE: Brazilian=Portuguese

jcb1981 said:
Brazilian=Portuguese
Click to expand...

Not exactly. Yes, it's Portuguese, but I work in a subtitle shop, and Brazilian Portuguese has many differences from the dialect in Portugal. This would be especially in the case of speech recognition. We have often put out features with a Portuguese track and a Brazilian Portuguese track.

Also notice: Siri speaks Mexican Spanish, Spain Spanish, and... US Spanish.

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freezah said:
Apple, why you don't give a flying ***** about Polish language ?
Click to expand...

I'm sure they won't stop implementing this until they have all the languages in the world that more than five people speak. But it takes time to build this stuff.

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seamer said:
I'll be impressed when it can speak Spouse. IE, Listens to a phrase, determines the gender of the speaker, and reacts on the intended context or the words used.
Click to expand...

It should probably stay out of that.

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afd said:
Glaswegian please.
Click to expand...

Nobody outside Glasgow can understand that. : )
 
T

Teste

macrumors 6502
Jan 8, 2011
353
5
Siri should probably win a prize for being Apple's feature with the longest beta ever. And it shows no sign of ending any time soon.
 
A

afsnyder

macrumors 65816
Jan 7, 2014
1,270
33
Radio said:
Hey guys ask Siri that you need to bury a body

So funny.

Ask Siri if they're human.


Siri is so awesome.





not.
Click to expand...

Some people like that. My mom cracks up every time Siri says something that isn't a command. Idk why... it's not really funny but whatever. I personally use siri all the time when I take naps or am baking something. Occasionally ask it math when I'm too lazy to type a few numbers. and other misc. things.
 
kalsta

kalsta

macrumors 68000
May 17, 2010
1,677
577
Australia
DanielDD said:
Brazilian Portuguese is Portuguese, but it is different from the European Portuguese. It's like comparing American English to British English. You just can't
Click to expand...

Colour / Color
Aluminium / Aluminum
Plough / Plow
Gaol / Jail
Cheque / Check

There you go. I just compared British English to American English.

An amusing little read on further differences: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/opinion/14iht-edtharoor.html
iLondoner said:
Siri for Glaswegians...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ
Click to expand...

Funny! Have you seen this one…?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG0LyVIM2Aw
 
F

Flying Wall E

macrumors newbie
Jun 23, 2014
9
0
kalsta said:
Colour / Color
Aluminium / Aluminum
Plough / Plow
Gaol / Jail
Cheque / Check

There you go. I just compared British English to American English.

An amusing little read on further differences: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/opinion/14iht-edtharoor.html



Funny! Have you seen this one…?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG0LyVIM2Aw
Click to expand...

Well obviously you can compare Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese or American English and English. But in the case of the original European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese the differences go a lot beyond the pronunciation and a few spelling differences. In Brazilian Portuguese the whole sentence structure can change. The way you address someone is very different, in fact using the normal Brazilian way in Portugal (especially in a formal context) would be considered extremely rude, like meeting Tim Cook and saying "hey! How's it going dude?". Except Portuguese people are kind of used to it and don't take it seriously. In Portugal the Brazilian immigrants are a bit like the Mexican immigrants in the US, usually very low income, extremely undereducated people that come to Lisbon (the capital of Portugal) to work in mcdonalds and jobs like that.

A text in Brazilian Portuguese evaluated according to proper Portuguese grammatical rules would be riddled with mistakes, and not just things like "colour or color".

I am a Portuguese student in Economics living in Lisbon until I finish my degree than off to London for my master's and to work in investment baking or venture capital, and I can tell you if Brazilian Portuguese becomes an option for Siri but not actual Portuguese than I'll just keep using British English as usual. I do not want to listen to Siri speak Brazilian.

Pardon any mistakes, it's 3 am in GMT time and I'm lying in bed typing on my iPhone and about to go to sleep. Good night :)
 
mtneer

mtneer

macrumors 68040
Sep 15, 2012
3,179
2,714
Mr. Gates said:
Some of the BIG languages of the world are not represented.

1 Hindi

2 Arabic

3 Russian

4 Portuguese

HUUUUUUUUGE FAIL
Click to expand...

Maybe due to poor iPhone penetration in those countries. But again, it could be a chicken and egg situation.
 
kalsta

kalsta

macrumors 68000
May 17, 2010
1,677
577
Australia
Flying Wall E said:
Well obviously you can compare Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese or American English and English. But in the case of the original European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese the differences go a lot beyond the pronunciation and a few spelling differences. In Brazilian Portuguese the whole sentence structure can change. …
Click to expand...

I don't speak either, but I'm not surprised by what you say. My comment was really addressed to the guy who said, 'It's like comparing American English to British English. You just can't'. Bad comparison by the sounds of it!
 
Kaspersky

Kaspersky

Suspended
Jan 31, 2013
117
60
Warsaw
jcb1981 said:
Brazilian=Portuguese
Click to expand...

No is not!
Brazilian who is born in Brazil, Portuguese is the language, since Portuguese is spoken in Portugal and Brazil, is conventionally distinguish the Portuguese spoken in Brazil that spoken in Portugal... so PT-BR and PT-PT :cool:
 
A

appleaddictx

macrumors member
May 7, 2012
32
0
It's time for more languages!

Now that Apple is putting Siri in the hands of select third-party apps, Apple can focus on breaking the language barrier even more. Brazil is like the "swing state" of the world for Apple right now. Adding a gimmick like Brazilian Portuguese would be a great pull factor that sets the iphone (remember that debate) from the iPhone.

Also Русский Siri FTW!
 
P

PastFuture

macrumors newbie
Jan 16, 2013
23
11
Germany
While they're at it, they should also add more features to Siri for currently supported languages. For instance, in German Siri isn't able to pull requests from Wolfram Alpha (several other services such as movie reviews and showtimes are also not supported). Improving on this would drastically increase Siri's usefulness for users in non-English-speaking countries.

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carjakester said:
for directions for apples apps, siri is fantastic ( Calendar, iMessage etc.) but if you ask a question such as siri whats a the best sushi place around here, she just does a search. If they could make it so she looks for sushi restaurants, finds the highest rated one, and puts that back out, it would have use.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Siri already does this by checking the ratings on Yelp. Either there aren't any good Sushi restaurants close enough to you or they simply don't have an entry on Yelp.
 
rudychidiac

rudychidiac

Suspended
May 2, 2012
378
1,291
Lebanon
Tiger8 said:
Would be interesting to see how they can pull Arabic off (one of the hardest languages to master). Will Siri speak classic Arabic or use a dialect? :D
Click to expand...


Oh jeez! Imagine Siri talking in Egyptian arabic :p I guess they would go for formal arabic. Which will kind of sound funny
 
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