4 ms·

> surrounded by a vast market/culture (US +Canada) US companies don't think about Canada as anything but an afterthought, and struggle with the same issues her

> surrounded by a vast market/culture (US +Canada) US companies don't think about Canada as anything but an afterthought, and struggle with the same issues here that you just mentioned. Canada is metric, uses different spellings (closer to UK English.. colour, not color [Chrome just marked my spelling as wrong despite me having Canadian English as my setting]) and is officially bilingual with localization laws requiring companies to provide French versions for certain kinds of services. US companies either don't bother, or usually get this entirely wrong. e.g. It's been how many years? And navigation on Android / Google Maps can't pronounce French names for streets/places while driving around in bilingual places in Canada. Just completely butchers them, their system can't "understand" the concept that you could have your language set to English but still need to hear French place names, or vice versa.

aziaziazi 2y ago
Google Nest prononciation of EN songs names in middle of sentence in other language was fun to ear. It’s been a wile it does pretty well (way better than at the beginning at least) so they probably have the tech to achieve street names prononciation.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  As I said elsewhere, it handles Spanish place names etc perfectly fine while driving around California. So, comes down to motivation / $$ it seems.
dustincoates 2y ago
> And navigation on Android / Google Maps can't pronounce French names for streets/places while driving around in bilingual places in Canada. Honestly, I think this is the right approach, and I'm speaking as a bilingual French/English speaker. Google Maps doesn't know that you are bilingual. So it has two choices: pronounce words the "right" (i.e., native) way, or pronounce them the "English" way. If someone who is unused to hearing the native pronunciation, their understanding is going to be impeded. Google Maps tells you for example to turn onto Passage du Grand Cerf in a French accent, a non-Francophone is going to have a harder time finding that. (Now, okay, maybe you should have a way to say that you're bilingual and want to hear the French pronunciation, but I understand why they don't do it.)
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  I agree. I would guess it might not be that difficult for Canadian people as they are all to some degree exposed and as such familiar with both languages' sounds. But I remember the first couple times I was in China a good decade ago, it was much easier for me take the older subway lines than the newer ones in Beijing. On the old lines, they had what sounded like a native English speaker do the announcements of the upcoming station, including the station name. On the newer ones it sounds like they just recorded the "we're arriving at" bit once and then spliced in the read-by-a-Chinese station name, which is much harder to understand as a foreigner. So on the new lines I was constantly staring at the displays.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  Huh? No, when driving in Quebec or Ottawa etc, there might be an "English" way to pronounce the names (like the kind of thing my anglo self would use, bad pronounciation but making an attempt), but it doesn't do that... it actually just reads out this weird literal phonetic output as if it was an English word and it's unrecognizable to anybody from the area or anybody who grew up in Canada and has a basic idea of how these words are pronounced. Even, like, names ... Duplessis or Cartier or whatever... just completely unrecognizable. Or take the way it reads out the exits off the 401 in Toronto, reading the full bilingual sign (where there is one) with the English first and then the French part as if it was a continuation ... in English ("Sud" read out like you'd say that if it was an English word, hard D and everything.) Clearly, they should just drop the French part, but their system can't comprehend that a sign could be bilingual. Because America. Look, I don't speak French, I'm not bilingual, and it drives me nuts when I'm in QC or even just Ottawa etc. I literally can't tell what street it's talking about, it doesn't correspond with the sign. It's incoherent. What's mind boggling is that Google navigation is completely fine reading out Spanish words when I drive around California. C'mon.
- xxs 2y ago
  >Google Maps doesn't know that you are bilingual. But it does know, e.g. "Accept-Language" header. Of course, google resent that part and travelling across Europe results in having a different language every day.
xxs 2y ago
The spelling of +Canada is very much on purpose (no space). I am very much aware Canada is metric and bilingual. Due to the proximity of US (tooling/documentation), lots of the trades still operate in non-metric (or some unholy combo). Most folks would be a lot more familiar of PSI when it comes to tyre pressure (compared to bars), etc. I don't know if L/100km is the standard unit to measure fuel consumption (efficiency).
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  L/100km is standard, especially because our roads use km measurements. I use both KPa and PSI. Measure my personal weight in pounds, but doctor and etc work in kg. Trades people work in both, by necessity. (My father was a machinist / tool&die maker who trained in Germany... drove him nuts). It's just the reality of "sleeping with the elephant" as the expression goes here. We just have it worse than Europe.

aziaziazi 2y ago

Google Nest prononciation of EN songs names in middle of sentence in other language was fun to ear. It’s been a wile it does pretty well (way better than at the beginning at least) so they probably have the tech to achieve street names prononciation.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
As I said elsewhere, it handles Spanish place names etc perfectly fine while driving around California. So, comes down to motivation / $$ it seems.

dustincoates 2y ago

> And navigation on Android / Google Maps can't pronounce French names for streets/places while driving around in bilingual places in Canada. Honestly, I think this is the right approach, and I'm speaking as a bilingual French/English speaker. Google Maps doesn't know that you are bilingual. So it has two choices: pronounce words the "right" (i.e., native) way, or pronounce them the "English" way. If someone who is unused to hearing the native pronunciation, their understanding is going to be impeded. Google Maps tells you for example to turn onto Passage du Grand Cerf in a French accent, a non-Francophone is going to have a harder time finding that. (Now, okay, maybe you should have a way to say that you're bilingual and want to hear the French pronunciation, but I understand why they don't do it.)

iforgotpassword 2y ago
I agree. I would guess it might not be that difficult for Canadian people as they are all to some degree exposed and as such familiar with both languages' sounds. But I remember the first couple times I was in China a good decade ago, it was much easier for me take the older subway lines than the newer ones in Beijing. On the old lines, they had what sounded like a native English speaker do the announcements of the upcoming station, including the station name. On the newer ones it sounds like they just recorded the "we're arriving at" bit once and then spliced in the read-by-a-Chinese station name, which is much harder to understand as a foreigner. So on the new lines I was constantly staring at the displays.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
Huh? No, when driving in Quebec or Ottawa etc, there might be an "English" way to pronounce the names (like the kind of thing my anglo self would use, bad pronounciation but making an attempt), but it doesn't do that... it actually just reads out this weird literal phonetic output as if it was an English word and it's unrecognizable to anybody from the area or anybody who grew up in Canada and has a basic idea of how these words are pronounced. Even, like, names ... Duplessis or Cartier or whatever... just completely unrecognizable. Or take the way it reads out the exits off the 401 in Toronto, reading the full bilingual sign (where there is one) with the English first and then the French part as if it was a continuation ... in English ("Sud" read out like you'd say that if it was an English word, hard D and everything.) Clearly, they should just drop the French part, but their system can't comprehend that a sign could be bilingual. Because America. Look, I don't speak French, I'm not bilingual, and it drives me nuts when I'm in QC or even just Ottawa etc. I literally can't tell what street it's talking about, it doesn't correspond with the sign. It's incoherent. What's mind boggling is that Google navigation is completely fine reading out Spanish words when I drive around California. C'mon.
xxs 2y ago
>Google Maps doesn't know that you are bilingual. But it does know, e.g. "Accept-Language" header. Of course, google resent that part and travelling across Europe results in having a different language every day.

xxs 2y ago

The spelling of +Canada is very much on purpose (no space). I am very much aware Canada is metric and bilingual. Due to the proximity of US (tooling/documentation), lots of the trades still operate in non-metric (or some unholy combo). Most folks would be a lot more familiar of PSI when it comes to tyre pressure (compared to bars), etc. I don't know if L/100km is the standard unit to measure fuel consumption (efficiency).

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
L/100km is standard, especially because our roads use km measurements. I use both KPa and PSI. Measure my personal weight in pounds, but doctor and etc work in kg. Trades people work in both, by necessity. (My father was a machinist / tool&die maker who trained in Germany... drove him nuts). It's just the reality of "sleeping with the elephant" as the expression goes here. We just have it worse than Europe.