Earlier this year, Google announced that it was working on multilingual support for Google Assistant, so those who speak more than one language wouldn’t necessarily have to require just one to direct the digital personal assistant. This week, that vision comes to life. At IFA 2018, Google has officially confirmed that bilingual support is rolling out to Google Assistant. That means that you can speak in two (supported) different languages and still get Assistant to react and respond in kind. As usual, Assistant will detect which language you’re speaking and reply in the same way, all in an effort to keep the conversation as smooth as possible. To start, Google says bilingual support is matched with any of these pairs: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. The company does note that it plans on adding additional language support at some point in the future, but it’s obviously not laying down any firm dates or specific languages just yet. As an example, Google says if you want to listen to your favorite “German hip hop band”, you simply need to say, “Hey Google, spiele die Fantastischen Vier”, and Assistant will be able to discern between the two languages, respond, and start playing the requested music.
This is easily one of the most oft-requested features for the digital personal assistant, and it’s good to see the company adding it in. Especially considering Assistant users won’t have to dig through the Settings in Assistant to get it to work. Bilingual support should just work for supported languages without any extra work.
