Siri, That’s Not How You Say That!
Those of you who have been a subscriber to my newsletter for a while know that I am a big user of Siri. Both in my business and personal life, Siri is truly my 24×7 personal assistant. I can’t imagine not having Siri assisting me for my daily work and play.
That being said, one thing that annoys me about using Siri is how it occasionally mispronounces a name (person).
Luckily, Apple has provided a couple ways to teach Siri how to pronounce a name. So, in this edition, I’m going to show you how to teach Siri to correctly say a name.
Teaching Siri How To Correctly Say A Name
As I mentioned, you have a couple ways to teach Siri how to pronounce a name. The first is to directly interact with Siri. Here is how I taught Siri how to correctly pronounce the name of my good friend Angelina Jolie.
http://littlemagonline.com/musical-chairs/musical-chairs-m-s-free-for-all-mix-playlist-for-02-july-2010/ How to directly Interact with Siri
When Siri mispronounces a name, respond back with “ http://e17arttrail.co.uk/lf.php That’s not how you say that.“
At that point, Siri will ask you to verbally pronounce the First name.
Next, Siri will respond with offering you multiple pronunciation choices. Press the play button next to each option, and then Select the one sounds best. If none of the pronunciation options sound good, tap the ‘Tell Siri again‘ option at the bottom and repeat this process.
You’ll then be prompted to say the Last name. Follow the same procedure mentioned above.
Upon completion, Siri will confirm that it has the correct pronunciation saved.
How to use the Contacts app to teach Siri
If interacting directly with Siri doesn’t work, open the contact within the Contacts app and tap Edit.
Scroll down the screen and tap on Add Field. In the resulting screen tap Phonetic First Name and/or Phonetic Last Name, depending on the name that Siri has trouble pronouncing.
In the text field(s) that appears at the top of the contact card, enter a spelling that approximates the pronunciation. For example, if Siri pronounces the last name “Jo-li” you’d enter “Jo-lee”.
In some cases you may get better results by tapping on the keyboard’s Dictation button and pronouncing it the way you’d like it spoken (voice-to-text dictation to enter the name). Tap Done and Siri should now pronounce the name correctly. Regrettably, as far as I know, Siri can’t be taught how to correctly pronounce place names.
There you go! I hope you learned something in this post. If you did, go show off to your family and friends. You deserve it!
If you know someone who might benefit from this tip, please share it with them. In fact, encourage them to sign up to receive helpful tips like this one in their inbox. They’ll thank you for it!
“Get Your Mobile On!”©
iPad (and Siri) Expert Dave 😉
iPad Expert Dave
@iPadExpertDave
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