7 ms·

I want to like Cortana, I really do. Unfortunately, it's linked to my phone's default language. So even though I could speak English, Cortana will not talk to m

I want to like Cortana, I really do. Unfortunately, it's linked to my phone's default language. So even though I could speak English, Cortana will not talk to me because my phone's interface is in Spanish. That is something I can understand - maybe there are development reasons why second language voice recognition is not possible. However, every time I update my OS, Cortana is added to my main screen again, perhaps to remind me of the wonderful times we could have together if only I changed my phone's main language. It shouldn't be too hard to add an extra "if" somewhere in the installation process, right?

reitanqild 11y ago
On PC it refuses even if my user interface is English.
- Maarten88 11y ago
  Indeed. I think Cortana does not have the knowledge and data it needs as an assistant (such as restaurants, shops, transportation) for many countries even if you set the language to English.
  - Joeri 11y ago
    Cortana also does reminders, why can't they offer the locale independent parts of Cortana everywhere?
- crazysaem 11y ago
  For me it was the same, but the cause was that the region was set to Germany. So language English, region Germany. After I set the region to the US, I was able to turn on Cortana. //Edit: The reason is probably because of what Maarten88 said.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Well, interestingly, Bing and Here have better data for Germany than Google does...
- Pxtl 11y ago
  I had to download the canadian English audio pack to make it work, since I'm using the Canadian dictionary. It came bundled with the American English audio pack. ... We sound the same.
- celticjames 11y ago
  I couldn't get it to work because my region is Canada but my speech language was set to English (US). I had to install the speech recognition pack for English (Canada). In a way I sort of flattered that Cortana recognizes my distinct cultural identity.
josu 11y ago
I have the same problem with Android Wear. My phone's setting overrides my language choice when I set up the watch.
danpeddle 11y ago
Sigh, that's sad. It baffles me that there are still so many services that try to 'automagically' intuit which language someone wants to have a service in, instead of just simply .. asking. Google play is a prime culprit, for example, showing a mixture of language content on the play store. See also subtitles, dubbed content, books.. Another one - Sony's Playstation store, where if you choose a country, then the language (despite them having the assets available through their international presence) is permanently set and impossible to change.
- dave5104 11y ago
  I don't think there's a problem with automagically inferring the language. It sounds like the problem lies in not being able to override that decision.
  - Mahn 11y ago
    That's exactly the thing, in an ideal world it would try to infer the language automatically, but still let you change it if you are not happy with it.
  - vagelim 11y ago
    Well then you open up the possibility of being unable to override the language because you cannot interpret the one inferred.
  - lovemenot 11y ago
    The route to revert language must be clear though, even when the UI is in a foreign language. This can be trickier than it sounds. For instance, selecting English from a Japanese UI should be "English" not 英語. Conversely, from English to select Japanese has to be 日本語　not "Japanese".
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  > It baffles me that there are still so many services that try to 'automagically' intuit which language someone wants to have a service in, instead of just simply .. asking. My experience is that language/locale implementation for a big project is so complex that PMs like to handwave the language selection part away. On a recent project I had to go back and ask, "What if an english-speaking user is traveling in Germany, do we show them the German-language site? What if a German-speaking user is traveling to France, do we show them English (since we didn't have an FR localization)?" Confounding the issue is that many implementations combine locale with language, which can be a problem if you have locale-exclusive features. As a made-up example, maybe Cortana's contract for stock data specifies it can only be used in the US, and you're a US-based Spanish speaker. But Cortana assumes Spanish == Mexico, so if you use Spanish now stock quotes don't work. It's really attractive to just call those problems edge cases to be worked out in the next release. (I think Etsy handles this really well, you can specify ship-to location, interface language, and currency separately. Although for some reason they auto-detected me, in the Bay Area, as UK, EN-GB, CAD which was strange. Obviously some work to be done.)
hudell 11y ago
Until just a few weeks ago, even switching the phone region and language, I couldn't use Cortana because it just wouldn't download the Language Pack for english. It only started working after a system update. It didn't take me another day to notice that it was useless to me and that I shouldn't even have bothered.
gambiting 11y ago
Microsoft has some really weird approach to languages. Take Xbox One. You cannot possibly set your location to say France and language to English. Nope. If you want your console in English, you HAVE to set your location to one of the English-speaking countries. It's really infuriating.
- Zekio 11y ago
  This is truly the worst thing ever! Because I have to change my Xbox back to my location and language just to buy new games and then change it back again to an English speaking country and English as language, just so I can actually use the voice control...
junto 11y ago
I have similar experiences living in a country where the dominant language is not my own. I hate the assumption that location should determine language preference. I've worked with several really smart programmers from the US during my career. However, I've noticed that their geographical knowledge of anything outside the US is extremely poor (generalisation I know). I assume this is due to the education system. Could this be the reason why large global players like Facebook and Google have such a poor acceptance and understanding concerning language, location and locales? Simply because many of the programmers are American? I often give the example that there are vastly more Catalan speakers in the world than those that speak Norwegian. However Catalan speakers are treated like second class citizens because most of them live in Spain, and programmers assume that Spain equals Spanish. And we are talking millions of people more. It isn't a small number. I'm often reminded of the urban tale of the man who approached a well known seller of washing-up liquid. He promised them a 25% increase in sales and he's receive 5% of the 25%. They agreed since they had nothing to lose and he told them to make the hole in the squeezy bottle 25% bigger. The people still squeezed the bottle for the same amount of time and the genius went home happy. So I say to Facebook and Google, "use the language of the user, as defined in their browser language s settings primarily, but offer the user a choice to change it. I'd like 25% of the increased sales" . The user's location should never be used unless you have legal obligations that are tied to geography. In which case, don't show an ad, since they'll not only be ineffective, but they make your company appear incompetent to the end user as well. Especially when I've registered to use your service and selected a preferred language!
- jahewson 11y ago
  > So I say to Facebook and Google, "use the language of the user, as defined in their browser language s settings primarily, but offer the user a choice to change it. I'd like 25% of the increased sales" Unfortunately this is not always accurate. Chrome on my Mac for example uses "en-us" despite the fact that my machine is entirely configured to use British English (en-gb). For my own websites I'm forced to geoip the location to infer which subset of English to use - most annoying.
  - kuschku 11y ago
rpgmaker 11y ago
Google navigation is the best example of this. Because of aesthetics I keep my phone in English even though I live in a Spanish speaking country. It's ok for Navigation to assume my language to be English but they should offer the option of changing it. The English voice completely mangles the Spanish street names and makes directions difficult to follow at times. It really isn't difficult for Google to just offer the option of changing the language.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Same in Germany. "Turn Left on A U T O B A H N TWO ONE FIVE". Thanks for spelling every character in english separately >_> (proper would be "Turn left on A215", or even better, with German pronunciation for street names)
- ArcticCelt 11y ago
  Same situation but for french, I live in Quebec. Earlier today I was trying the voice detection to say a direction, I tried to say the street name in the normal french accent, I tried to tell it in a mangled English accent, I tried to read it literally as if it was an English word. Nothing to do, Google directions was making ridiculous interpretations of what I was saying or sending me to locations on other continents. :/
thecosas 11y ago
Polyglots need not apply.
johnchristopher 11y ago
It could be worse. You could live in a French speaking country that is not France but Cortana only works when you switch the whole phone to the French region. Then you get French specific news only (among other things).
jrockway 11y ago
Interestingly, Google Now lets you enable multiple languages, and it can tell which you're speaking at the moment. I was quite impressed when it could understand my Japanese.
unsignedint 11y ago
Same boat here, with Japanese/English. Google started getting this correct, and now they let me choose two languages, so I can either speak to it in Japanese or English. Devs need to realize that there are disconnects in language and usage context for some people, and I'd think this will get worse, not better. Some apps (Amazon MP3 back in Android 2.x era last I tried -- I'm not sure they've fixed that or not now) went so far and even said the service is not available in your country, for solely by the choice of language.
voltagex_ 11y ago
Microsoft region-lock languages on the Xbox, too. https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/253802-home-settings/suggestions/6028840-don-t-region-lock-the-languages https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/253802-home-settings/sugge...
thirdsun 11y ago
That reminds me of telling Siri to play [any english band/artist name] when you're using anything but english as default language - she won't recognize anything in that case which renders most of the music related commands useless on iOS.
pmelendez 11y ago
Not trying to change your way to doing things but why don't try using English for the interface? Spanish is my first language as well and I don't have problem writing in spanish while using english as main language for the UI.

reitanqild 11y ago

On PC it refuses even if my user interface is English.

Maarten88 11y ago
Indeed. I think Cortana does not have the knowledge and data it needs as an assistant (such as restaurants, shops, transportation) for many countries even if you set the language to English.
- Joeri 11y ago
  Cortana also does reminders, why can't they offer the locale independent parts of Cortana everywhere?
crazysaem 11y ago
For me it was the same, but the cause was that the region was set to Germany. So language English, region Germany. After I set the region to the US, I was able to turn on Cortana. //Edit: The reason is probably because of what Maarten88 said.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, interestingly, Bing and Here have better data for Germany than Google does...
Pxtl 11y ago
I had to download the canadian English audio pack to make it work, since I'm using the Canadian dictionary. It came bundled with the American English audio pack. ... We sound the same.
celticjames 11y ago
I couldn't get it to work because my region is Canada but my speech language was set to English (US). I had to install the speech recognition pack for English (Canada). In a way I sort of flattered that Cortana recognizes my distinct cultural identity.

josu 11y ago

I have the same problem with Android Wear. My phone's setting overrides my language choice when I set up the watch.

danpeddle 11y ago

Sigh, that's sad. It baffles me that there are still so many services that try to 'automagically' intuit which language someone wants to have a service in, instead of just simply .. asking. Google play is a prime culprit, for example, showing a mixture of language content on the play store. See also subtitles, dubbed content, books.. Another one - Sony's Playstation store, where if you choose a country, then the language (despite them having the assets available through their international presence) is permanently set and impossible to change.

dave5104 11y ago
I don't think there's a problem with automagically inferring the language. It sounds like the problem lies in not being able to override that decision.
- Mahn 11y ago
  That's exactly the thing, in an ideal world it would try to infer the language automatically, but still let you change it if you are not happy with it.
- vagelim 11y ago
  Well then you open up the possibility of being unable to override the language because you cannot interpret the one inferred.
- lovemenot 11y ago
  The route to revert language must be clear though, even when the UI is in a foreign language. This can be trickier than it sounds. For instance, selecting English from a Japanese UI should be "English" not 英語. Conversely, from English to select Japanese has to be 日本語　not "Japanese".
Domenic_S 11y ago
> It baffles me that there are still so many services that try to 'automagically' intuit which language someone wants to have a service in, instead of just simply .. asking. My experience is that language/locale implementation for a big project is so complex that PMs like to handwave the language selection part away. On a recent project I had to go back and ask, "What if an english-speaking user is traveling in Germany, do we show them the German-language site? What if a German-speaking user is traveling to France, do we show them English (since we didn't have an FR localization)?" Confounding the issue is that many implementations combine locale with language, which can be a problem if you have locale-exclusive features. As a made-up example, maybe Cortana's contract for stock data specifies it can only be used in the US, and you're a US-based Spanish speaker. But Cortana assumes Spanish == Mexico, so if you use Spanish now stock quotes don't work. It's really attractive to just call those problems edge cases to be worked out in the next release. (I think Etsy handles this really well, you can specify ship-to location, interface language, and currency separately. Although for some reason they auto-detected me, in the Bay Area, as UK, EN-GB, CAD which was strange. Obviously some work to be done.)

hudell 11y ago

Until just a few weeks ago, even switching the phone region and language, I couldn't use Cortana because it just wouldn't download the Language Pack for english. It only started working after a system update. It didn't take me another day to notice that it was useless to me and that I shouldn't even have bothered.

gambiting 11y ago

Microsoft has some really weird approach to languages. Take Xbox One. You cannot possibly set your location to say France and language to English. Nope. If you want your console in English, you HAVE to set your location to one of the English-speaking countries. It's really infuriating.

Zekio 11y ago
This is truly the worst thing ever! Because I have to change my Xbox back to my location and language just to buy new games and then change it back again to an English speaking country and English as language, just so I can actually use the voice control...

junto 11y ago

I have similar experiences living in a country where the dominant language is not my own. I hate the assumption that location should determine language preference. I've worked with several really smart programmers from the US during my career. However, I've noticed that their geographical knowledge of anything outside the US is extremely poor (generalisation I know). I assume this is due to the education system. Could this be the reason why large global players like Facebook and Google have such a poor acceptance and understanding concerning language, location and locales? Simply because many of the programmers are American? I often give the example that there are vastly more Catalan speakers in the world than those that speak Norwegian. However Catalan speakers are treated like second class citizens because most of them live in Spain, and programmers assume that Spain equals Spanish. And we are talking millions of people more. It isn't a small number. I'm often reminded of the urban tale of the man who approached a well known seller of washing-up liquid. He promised them a 25% increase in sales and he's receive 5% of the 25%. They agreed since they had nothing to lose and he told them to make the hole in the squeezy bottle 25% bigger. The people still squeezed the bottle for the same amount of time and the genius went home happy. So I say to Facebook and Google, "use the language of the user, as defined in their browser language s settings primarily, but offer the user a choice to change it. I'd like 25% of the increased sales" . The user's location should never be used unless you have legal obligations that are tied to geography. In which case, don't show an ad, since they'll not only be ineffective, but they make your company appear incompetent to the end user as well. Especially when I've registered to use your service and selected a preferred language!

jahewson 11y ago
> So I say to Facebook and Google, "use the language of the user, as defined in their browser language s settings primarily, but offer the user a choice to change it. I'd like 25% of the increased sales" Unfortunately this is not always accurate. Chrome on my Mac for example uses "en-us" despite the fact that my machine is entirely configured to use British English (en-gb). For my own websites I'm forced to geoip the location to infer which subset of English to use - most annoying.
- kuschku 11y ago

rpgmaker 11y ago

Google navigation is the best example of this. Because of aesthetics I keep my phone in English even though I live in a Spanish speaking country. It's ok for Navigation to assume my language to be English but they should offer the option of changing it. The English voice completely mangles the Spanish street names and makes directions difficult to follow at times. It really isn't difficult for Google to just offer the option of changing the language.

kuschku 11y ago
Same in Germany. "Turn Left on A U T O B A H N TWO ONE FIVE". Thanks for spelling every character in english separately >_> (proper would be "Turn left on A215", or even better, with German pronunciation for street names)
ArcticCelt 11y ago
Same situation but for french, I live in Quebec. Earlier today I was trying the voice detection to say a direction, I tried to say the street name in the normal french accent, I tried to tell it in a mangled English accent, I tried to read it literally as if it was an English word. Nothing to do, Google directions was making ridiculous interpretations of what I was saying or sending me to locations on other continents. :/

thecosas 11y ago

Polyglots need not apply.

johnchristopher 11y ago

It could be worse. You could live in a French speaking country that is not France but Cortana only works when you switch the whole phone to the French region. Then you get French specific news only (among other things).

jrockway 11y ago

Interestingly, Google Now lets you enable multiple languages, and it can tell which you're speaking at the moment. I was quite impressed when it could understand my Japanese.

unsignedint 11y ago

Same boat here, with Japanese/English. Google started getting this correct, and now they let me choose two languages, so I can either speak to it in Japanese or English. Devs need to realize that there are disconnects in language and usage context for some people, and I'd think this will get worse, not better. Some apps (Amazon MP3 back in Android 2.x era last I tried -- I'm not sure they've fixed that or not now) went so far and even said the service is not available in your country, for solely by the choice of language.

voltagex_ 11y ago

Microsoft region-lock languages on the Xbox, too. https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/253802-home-settings/suggestions/6028840-don-t-region-lock-the-languages https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/253802-home-settings/sugge...

thirdsun 11y ago

That reminds me of telling Siri to play [any english band/artist name] when you're using anything but english as default language - she won't recognize anything in that case which renders most of the music related commands useless on iOS.

pmelendez 11y ago

Not trying to change your way to doing things but why don't try using English for the interface? Spanish is my first language as well and I don't have problem writing in spanish while using english as main language for the UI.