Dear Aunt TUAW,
I am a great fan of your articles on all Apple-related products.
I have a question for you about Siri. I am Dutch, live in Switzerland and work in a international company. How will this reflect on my Siri usage? Even with Voice Control I have a problem. My iPhone is setup in English (working language) but Dutch or Swiss/German names are not picked up well. So, did anyone try this out so far?
Thanks for an answer.
Your loving nephew,
Hester B.
Dear Hester,
Here's a quick answer, courtesy of the "Talking to Siri" eBook: You can enter phonetic names in the Contacts app. These help with both pronunciation and recognition.
Auntie created a contact for "Sergio Jones" in her address book, making sure to add a phonetic pronunciation field for the first name of "Ser hee yo" (Edit > Add field).
Sure enough, once added, Siri was able to interpret Auntie's request to "Call Ser hee yo" to the right contact.
The secret lies in using English-sounding phonemes. When Auntie pronounces Sergio correctly -- with rolled R, and the non-English-sounding "e" like "air" -- Siri will not pick it up. You need to English-ify the way you say it, so you better match what Siri expects.
Auntie's friend Sjoerd van Geffen regaled her this morning with hilarious stories about trying to make a C-64 pronounce the Dutch "eu" sound. For some names, Auntie is afraid, you're just going to have to sacrifice the proper vowels.
When talking to Siri with US-English set as your default language, you have to adapt the way you speak: unnaturally enunciated word endings, longer pauses between words than you're used to, and flatter English-y vowels. Try using "Choord" for "Sjoerd" and "Leak ah" for Lieke.
Your Mac offers a great way to build these up. Use the "say" command from the Terminal app's command line, e.g. "Say leak ah". Fortunately Siri is even a little better at the "sounds like" translations than "say" is.
Hugs,
Auntie T.
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