If you have Siri set to speak in English, she will not understand the word “gracias.” But Google on Thursday updated its Google Now voice search and assistant app so it can quickly switch between multiple languages on the fly, CNET reports.
Rather than select a single language setting from Google’s list of about 50, Google Now can now recognize and understand the speaker’s language and allow users to switch up to seven different ones on the fly. According to Google, you’ll have to pre-select your secondary languages, but after that the feature will work automatically.
In an interview with CNET, Google said “seemingly simple language-recognition tasks are much harder than they appear,” and that it’s still working on making Google Now a true linguist by understanding complex accents and minimizing ambient noise.
Simultaneous multi-language support will roll out to Google Now users within “the coming days,” Google said.
