Alexa is now bilingual. Amazon’s virtual assistant can be switched to an español mode via the Alexa app, allowing the device to understand demands in Spanish and respond in the language.
The second tongue can be accessed through its supported Echo and Alexa built-in devices by switching to Spanish via the Alexa app.
However, if you’re in a bilingual household and don’t want your helpful device only responsive in Spanish or English, you could also set the gadget to multilingual mode. Through this, you could ask Alexa to “play Cardi B” while you’re getting dressed in the morning and mami could command, “Alexa, toca música de Frankie Ruiz” while she dances salsa preparing your dinner.
“With billions of people in the world speaking more than one language, many homes are not homogenous when it comes to languages anymore,” an Amazon spokesperson said while announcing its new feature at an event in Seattle last month.
Alexa mastered the Spanish language through two new systems, Engadget reports. The first is a tool that studies the “golden utterances,” or reference commands suggested by the developers, to learn general syntax and semantics patterns. The second uses media sources like the Amazon Music catalog and existing languages to conduct a guided resampling that replaces terms.
The same software is being used by the company to program Alexa to speak Brazilian Portuguese. Alexa built-in devices, like the Echo Dot, the Echo Show and the Echo smart speaker, will begin to ship to the South American country in October and November. In addition to speaking the language, the virtual assistant will also have other skills that are specific to the region.
While devices in Brazil will speak Portuguese, those sold in the U.S. will, for now, solely be bilingual, speaking English and Spanish.