iOS 7's Siri Can Learn How to Pronounce Names

[MacRumors]

Shortly before today's iOS 7 Beta 2 was released, one of 9to5Mac's readers found that iOS 7's Siri has the ability to correct pronunciations for names.

Image via 9to5MacPreviously, getting Siri to properly pronounce names required a user to edit the "phonetic name" for a contact and manually adjust the spelling until Siri pronounced the name the correct way. Now, as 9to5Mac notes, a user can simply say "pronounce [insert name here]" to put Siri through a simpler name pronunciation learning process.

Within that process, Siri will ask the user to pronounce the name and then present a couple of pronunciations based on how it heard the user. The user is then prompted to select a pronunciation, which Siri will from then on attempt to use when saying the name in question.

While the feature was in iOS 7 Beta 1, it's unknown at this point whether there have been improvements in the recently released Beta 2.

Article Link: iOS 7's Siri Can Learn How to Pronounce Names

 

[darijoe]

Siri is becoming not so siri after all!

 

[alia]

This is great news! One reason Siri irks me is that she can't pronounce my name at all, and it grates.

 

[negativzero]

Siri totally fails at Asian names. This is going to be real useful when I go handsfree.

 

[caligomez]

What Siri desperately needs is a way to differentiate one language from another without having to strictly accept one at a time. There are many bilingual countries (and users) that have have to constantly use different language words in the same sentence.

 

[Carlanga]

Great news for me; now to decide which language I'm gonna keep as the main one and the second just let Siri relearned names.

Can Siri relearn names in the music app also?

 

[locoboi187]

Still messes up my name but much better!

 

[cRuNcHiE]

You can do this in IOS6 too...

In the contact with 'My info' , edit and choose Add field. Then choose Phoenetic First name .

E.g I have put Krun Chee. Now Siri says my name right

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Previously, getting Siri to properly pronounce names required a user to edit the "phonetic name" for a contact and manually adjust the spelling until Siri pronounced the name the correct way. Now, as 9to5Mac notes, a user can simply say "pronounce [insert name here]" to put Siri through a simpler name pronunciation learning process.

You can do this in IOS6 too...

Sometimes it helps to read the article.

 

[Dadditude]

Here's hoping its not just limited to names. While I can't think of any right now, I know there are some words/phrases that Siri just pronounces oddly (to me), and it would be nice to be able to correct her.

Interesting thought that just occurred to me… if this is the case, you could slowly teach her to speak with a regional dialect or accent…

 

[MartiNZ]

This is cool! If they add it to maps that would be a really nice move.

 

[tdtran1025]

Flaunting the prowess of their data center with multiple-language capacity.

 

[kockgunner]

I tried it with some names and it just pronounces it with different intonations. Simple names still have a bit of unnaturalness to them.

Other observations:
- In beta 2 Siri can't seem to control the flashlight anymore.

- Some preset phrases seem so natural but answers that need to be 'built' like when there's a city name or termperature, you can hear a tinge of old Siri.

 

[attila]

Cool feature!

Hate the bland, grey, buttons/touch areas!

 

[Tysknaden]

Very nice! - I've never enabled Siri, but I am sure, that it would touch the core of my soul: Siri, finally able to pronounce my name. Correctly.
It is the nucleus of the core of my most secret wishes.
(Except the wish for an iOS7, which is not an insult for my degenerated European taste.)
Maybe... once... I will listen to Siri, correctly pronouncing my name. Meanwhile, I am staring at iOS7's screenshots

 

[iomar]

Didn't work that good. I hope that they can improve on this. It will be very useful.

 

[olowott]

Awesomeeeeee

Time to try my native african name

 

[macaddict06]

As someone with a ton of Indian family: thank you ever-loving god and about #&*ing time. I had to learn how to repronounce names just to get iOS 6 Siri to work 1/2 the time.

 

[iThinkIt]

Yes..

Siri has been learning a lot lately.. but she tends to mumble and sometimes she says off the wall things that don't make since.

 

[Gasu E.]

But it's pronounced "Wong."

Only if you're literate, or actually Chinese. In any case, we gweilo find WAng to be much funnier.

Of course, he could have said "message Dick."

 

[dwarnecke11]

What's interesting is that my iPod shuffle gets my last name right... "War-nuh-key"

Siri pronounces it as "War-neck".

 

[Gasu E.]

Yes..

Siri has been learning a lot lately.. but she tends to mumble and sometimes she says off the wall things that don't make since.

Image

Oh, the irony!

 

[Drunken Master]

Only if you're literate, or actually Chinese. In any case, we gweilo find WAng to be much funnier.

Of course, he could have said "message Dick."

Siri is going to have some issues when I want to text Dick Cheney.

 

[rdlink]

Yes..

Siri has been learning a lot lately.. but she tends to mumble and sometimes she says off the wall things that don't make since.

Image

But at least she knows how to spell...

 

[e-coli]

It was always rather irksome that I had to mispronounce my name when using Siri. Glad they fixed that.