Bonjour, Alexa! How Amazon’s virtual assistant learned to speak Quebec French GlobeBusiness
Last September, Hans Laroche embarked on an unusual teaching assignment. He and a few thousand fellow Quebecers were enlisted to help Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa learn the finer points of Quebec French, from the distinctive accent to so-called “joual” expressions and the linguistic mishmash known as “Franglais.”
As an example, he said Quebecers tend to use English verbs such as “check” or “cancel” rather than their French counterparts, “verifier” or “annuler.” Nicolas Maynard, the man in charge of Alexa in Canada, said teaching the virtual assistant to understand French was a difficult challenge, due to the complexity of the language and the prevalence of homonyms, contractions, and a vocabulary that differs widely by region.
“If you ask a French person to say the name of an American song, you’ll clearly hear the French accent. But if you ask a Canadian , you’ll get a pronunciation that is very close to English.” “If you ask who is Montreal’s mayor, who is the prime minister of Canada, it knows the answer, which was not the case in the beginning,” he said.
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