Google: We’re Working On Multiple Language Translation Detection

Jon Wiley, Principal Designer for Google Search, participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion, where in one question, he was asked to share something cool he is working on. He shared that Google is working on a feature to listen to multiple languages at the same time and be able to process them […]

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Jon Wiley, Principal Designer for Google Search, participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion, where in one question, he was asked to share something cool he is working on. He shared that Google is working on a feature to listen to multiple languages at the same time and be able to process them at the same time.

Many people who speak multiple languages natively, when talking to family and friends, will often use both languages at the same time. They will mix let’s say English and Spanish when talking. That behavior is really not that uncommon.

Jon Wiley said that Google is working on a “really cool feature for voice search.” He wrote:

It lets you set multiple languages, and then you can speak in whichever of those languages and Google will automatically detect which you’re using at the moment. So that makes it easier to use Google when you speak multiple languages (at least on the asking-questions side).

On the results end, Jon said it gets tricky. He wrote:

On the results side, tricky stuff since the Web is such a blend of languages, some amount of machine translation is possible but not perfect, etc. But you can add multiple languages for which search results are displayed at Settings > Languages and add them. Then you’ll see both English and German results, depending on what’s relevant.

I suspect those who speak multiple languages natively will get a kick out of this feature, if and when it launches.

It is also very rare for Google to talk about what they are working on in search before it is released.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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