Google adds 30 languages to voice search & makes it possible to use emojis with voice typing

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Aiming to make its voice typing technology more inclusive, Google has added 30 new languages to voice search — bringing the total number of languages supported by speech recognition via Gboard on Android to 119.

Included among the languages are Bengali, Lao, Sundanese, Urdu and two of the most popular African languages — Swahili and Amharic. It has also added Georgian, an ancient language that dates back to the 10th century.

From the Google Search Blog:

To incorporate 30 new language varieties, we worked with native speakers to collect speech samples, asking them to read common phrases. This process trained our machine learning models to understand the sounds and words of the new languages and to improve their accuracy when exposed to more examples over time.

You can see the full list of the latest languages added to Google’s voice typing feature on the Google Search blog.

Google is also adding the new languages to its Cloud Speech API and says it is working to integrate them into other apps like Google Translate.

In addition to adding more languages, US users can also search for emojis using voice typing.

“You can now say something like ‘winky face emoji’ to express yourself. Or, even ‘Colbert emoji’ to your friends when the occasion calls,” writes Daan Van Esch, Google’s technical program manager for speech who penned the announcement on Google’s Search blog.

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Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.