Google Wants Consumers to Start Sounding Smarter

Ever have the entire room look at you like you’re  nuts because you mispronounced a word THAT badly? Yep, us too. Well, thanks to Google’s new pronunciation tool, gone are the days of you pronouncing “worcestershire” (woo-stuh-sher) like “whor-ses-ter-shire”.

The new pronunciation feature, powered by machine learning, works as follows: Google’s speech recognition tools process the recording, separate it into individual sounds and then compare it to how language experts pronounce it, according to TechCrunch. In addition to the new pronunciation feature, Google is adding more images to its dictionary and translate features, but for now, it’s only available in English nouns, TechCrunch says. 

“Advances in speech recognition and machine learning can improve the way we learn about languages,” Google said in its announcement. “We hope these new features gives you a creative, more effective way to practice, visualize and remember new words. We plan to expand these features to more languages, accents and regions in the future.”

Much to everyone’s knowledge, Google has been on top of its game lately (no surprise there). Google recently partnered with restaurant digital ordering platform, Olo, to allow customers at more than 70,000 Olo-connected restaurant locations to order directly from Google Search, Maps and Google Assistant. All you have to do is say the magic words (Hey, Google!)

This new pronunciation feature comes amid major technology innovations across the consumer marketplace, including augmented reality (AR)-driven marketing, facial recognition POS technology and the forthcoming rollout of 5G, the fastest iteration of a nationwide broadband network. How the advent of disruptive technology will change the way in which consumers order and interact with the foodservice industry remains to be seen—but if the meteoric rise of third-party delivery is any indication, it should be substantive (that’s “sub-stan-tiv”).

Read the full TechCrunch article here.