6 ms·

Will there ever be Chinese support?

eximius 9y ago
Google isn't neglecting the Chinese. Chinese is just brutal for literally everything. It's hard for humans, it's hard for machines, it's hard for humans designing for machines for use by humans. It's hard to read, write, hear, speak, represent. Voice UX for English, where linguists and AI and money are being thrown, is still very much in its infancy. Let's give them a little time.
- danimal88 9y ago
  I suspect this is less about difficulty and more about markets. Simply put, my guess is that there is a decent reliance on google services which are banned in China.
  - fbdjskajxb 9y ago
    Even if you exclude China, I believe Chinese is still a top-30 language.
    - criley2 9y ago
      That doesn't sound impressive?
      - fbdjskajxb 9y ago
        We’re all talking about an announcement that Google Assistant is supporting over 30 languages.
  - eximius 9y ago
    That may deprioritize it, but it is still the third most spoken language in the US[1]. Yes, it is less important than many European languages, but it will still be important even if you completely ignore China. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States
    - dorfsmay 9y ago
      What does Chinese mean here? One of the main Chinese language? Or all Chinese languages? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
      - eximius 9y ago
        I was ignoring that for simplicity. Presumably Mandarin, unless otherwise specified, but who knows. My Chinese is pretty rusty, but Cantonese and other dialects were always unintelligible to me even when I could speak decently.
- derefr 9y ago
  How well does Apple's Siri work with Mandarin? I always got the impression that it did pretty well.
- faitswulff 9y ago
  I would have to agree with /u/danimal88's analysis that it's probably more about market than difficulty. For humans, spoken fluency in Chinese is not nearly as difficult as it's made out to be until you add written Chinese. Voice to text in Chinese is very close to perfect. I suspect that it's actually easier for machines to interpret than English, considering the fact that English is so damned inconsistent in pronunciation, grammar, and phonemes.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Unless you limit yourself to the official dialect of Mandarin, Chinese also has lots of inconsistencies, partially because the majority of the population being able to speak Mandarin is actually a fairly recent development. A large minority has trouble distinguishing retroflex consonants from alveolars. Not everyone's tones have the same pitch contours. Some dialects also mess with the grammar, e.g. by tacking certain parts of speech onto the end of a sentence. So if you want to capture the full variation of the language as it's actually spoken, you'll have similar difficulties as with English.
    - faitswulff 9y ago
      I would definitely limit it to the official dialect of Mandarin. Consider that French and Italian are both supported by Google Assistant and they have a lexical similarity of .89, which is high enough to be considered dialects of each other [0]. Meanwhile a high estimate of Cantonese and Mandarin lexical similarity pegs it at .62 [1]. I think it's fair to treat support for Chinese "dialects" as different languages. I suspect the only reason Chinese is categorized as a single language is ignorance and Eurocentrism. German and English have roughly the same lexical similarity as Cantonese and Mandarin, for example. Considering Chinese one monolithic language is like considering all European languages dialects of "European." [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11b0fg/til_french_and_italian_have_a_lexical_similarity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11b0fg/til_f... [1]: http://dx.doi.org/10.5353/th_b3178970 http://dx.doi.org/10.5353/th_b3178970
      - deleted 9y ago
- bitL 9y ago
  > Chinese is just brutal for literally everything. I've heard Chinese ex-colleagues how characters are so much better instead of icons on smartphones... Maybe they just wanted the messy system where most of population can't write a grammatically correct sentence (oh, you can read Chinese, but I can write!) to be useful somewhere...
faitswulff 9y ago
I hope they add it soon. Google Assistant would be perfect for my wife's grandparents, who speak barely any English.

Google isn't neglecting the Chinese. Chinese is just brutal for literally everything. It's hard for humans, it's hard for machines, it's hard for humans designing for machines for use by humans. It's hard to read, write, hear, speak, represent. Voice UX for English, where linguists and AI and money are being thrown, is still very much in its infancy. Let's give them a little time.

danimal88 9y ago
I suspect this is less about difficulty and more about markets. Simply put, my guess is that there is a decent reliance on google services which are banned in China.
- fbdjskajxb 9y ago
  Even if you exclude China, I believe Chinese is still a top-30 language.
  - criley2 9y ago
    That doesn't sound impressive?
    - fbdjskajxb 9y ago
      We’re all talking about an announcement that Google Assistant is supporting over 30 languages.
- eximius 9y ago
  That may deprioritize it, but it is still the third most spoken language in the US[1]. Yes, it is less important than many European languages, but it will still be important even if you completely ignore China. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States
  - dorfsmay 9y ago
    What does Chinese mean here? One of the main Chinese language? Or all Chinese languages? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
    - eximius 9y ago
      I was ignoring that for simplicity. Presumably Mandarin, unless otherwise specified, but who knows. My Chinese is pretty rusty, but Cantonese and other dialects were always unintelligible to me even when I could speak decently.
derefr 9y ago
How well does Apple's Siri work with Mandarin? I always got the impression that it did pretty well.
faitswulff 9y ago
I would have to agree with /u/danimal88's analysis that it's probably more about market than difficulty. For humans, spoken fluency in Chinese is not nearly as difficult as it's made out to be until you add written Chinese. Voice to text in Chinese is very close to perfect. I suspect that it's actually easier for machines to interpret than English, considering the fact that English is so damned inconsistent in pronunciation, grammar, and phonemes.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Unless you limit yourself to the official dialect of Mandarin, Chinese also has lots of inconsistencies, partially because the majority of the population being able to speak Mandarin is actually a fairly recent development. A large minority has trouble distinguishing retroflex consonants from alveolars. Not everyone's tones have the same pitch contours. Some dialects also mess with the grammar, e.g. by tacking certain parts of speech onto the end of a sentence. So if you want to capture the full variation of the language as it's actually spoken, you'll have similar difficulties as with English.
  - faitswulff 9y ago
    I would definitely limit it to the official dialect of Mandarin. Consider that French and Italian are both supported by Google Assistant and they have a lexical similarity of .89, which is high enough to be considered dialects of each other [0]. Meanwhile a high estimate of Cantonese and Mandarin lexical similarity pegs it at .62 [1]. I think it's fair to treat support for Chinese "dialects" as different languages. I suspect the only reason Chinese is categorized as a single language is ignorance and Eurocentrism. German and English have roughly the same lexical similarity as Cantonese and Mandarin, for example. Considering Chinese one monolithic language is like considering all European languages dialects of "European." [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11b0fg/til_french_and_italian_have_a_lexical_similarity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11b0fg/til_f... [1]: http://dx.doi.org/10.5353/th_b3178970 http://dx.doi.org/10.5353/th_b3178970
    - deleted 9y ago
bitL 9y ago
> Chinese is just brutal for literally everything. I've heard Chinese ex-colleagues how characters are so much better instead of icons on smartphones... Maybe they just wanted the messy system where most of population can't write a grammatically correct sentence (oh, you can read Chinese, but I can write!) to be useful somewhere...

faitswulff 9y ago

I hope they add it soon. Google Assistant would be perfect for my wife's grandparents, who speak barely any English.