Japanese Language Support Coming to Siri

Ohayou gozaimasu.

Users of the iPhone 4S may hear Siri greeting them this way in the morning since Siri itself reportedly confirmed that it will support the Japanese language soon. This is among the languages that the virtual personal assistant on the iPhone 4S is set to support.

Earlier reports have given indications that Chinese (Mandarin) will be added soon along with Russian and Japanese. This was reportedly confirmed by Siri when it revealed that it can speak English, French, German and Japanese.

Siri

It appears that the official confirmation that Siri will support the Japanese language will be coming out soon even though it remains uncertain on when the support for the other reported languages will be confirmed by the company. The virtual personal assistant of the iPhone 4S also revealed that it was always learning, which hinted at the possibility that the confirmation for support for the other languages may also be coming.

At present, only US, British and Australian English is supported by Siri. Some industry watchers have indicated that this is expected since the virtual personal assistant on the iPhone 4S is reportedly still on the beta stage and improvements are anticipated to be made in the future. These improvements include the increase in the languages it supports.

Among the languages that Siri is expected to support within the year include, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Japanese. According to the Siri FAQ, the application has the capability of recognizing the particular dialect and accent of the countries that are supported by the app.

Issues were initially noted in Siri when it came to the regional dialects as it was not able to recognize non-native voices and found it difficult to understand Scottish accents.

With the upcoming support for the Japanese language on Siri, iPhone 4S users in Japan will be able to fully optimize the virtual personal assistant of their devices. However it appears that support for the Japanese language is not the only obstacle that Japanese users will have to hurdle since the word ‘Siri’ is not easy to pronounce in Japanese with the nearest equivalent reportedly means one’s backside.