Google Translate officially launched on 28 April 2006. This means that as of this month, the translation service is twenty years old. In conjunction with this milestone, the company has announced a new feature to help learners nail the correct pronunciation.
In a blog post commemorating the translation tool’s 20th anniversary, Google revealed that it is rolling out the long-requested feature to the Translate app on Android. Called “pronunciation practice”, it builds on the previously launched “ask” and “understand” tools. Like these functions, pronunciation practice leverages AI to analyse the user’s speech and provide feedback.
As demonstrated in a video, the user can tap on the “practice” button when viewing a translation. This will bring up two options: listen and pronounce. Tapping on the latter will show the phonetic spelling of the word or phrase, which will serve as a guide for producing the correct sounds.
At this point, the app will listen for any pronunciation attempts. Once the user has spoken, the app will analyse the input. Based on Google’s example, the tool is capable of pointing out mistakes and will highlight areas of improvement. Aside from that, there is an option to try again, so the user can keep practicing until they get it right.
Of course, you can’t easily determine the tool’s overall effectiveness from just one example. But if you’re rushing to download the app to check it out for yourself, you may be disappointed. For now, the feature is getting a pretty limited release. At the moment, the tech giant is only rolling it out in two regions, namely the US and India.
What’s more, the tool is only available for three languages: English, Spanish, and Hindi. The choice of languages here is deliberate. As per Google’s data, the most common translation pair is English to Spanish. English to Hindi is also another common pairing.
In any case, it may be a while before the feature reaches our side of the globe. At the moment, the company has yet to disclose plans of a wider rollout.
(Source: Google [blog])
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