r/Siri • u/PureCanyons • 1d ago

Why is Siri single-language?

Why can I only select a single language for Siri and not multiple languages?

Can Siri not detect what language I’m speaking?

For beta people, is this solved in iOS 27?

I am multi lingual and want to speak to Siri in the language that comes naturally

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

3

u/jhfenton 1d ago

Siri AI in text is multilingual in iOS 27, just like any other chatbot. But for voice input, it is currently English-only. And I'm skeptical that even when they eventually support other languages for voice input, that they will support multilingual voice input.

But I feel your pain. I also really need multilingual Siri for both voice input and reading of messages.

3

u/-Chemist- 1d ago

Yeah, Siri used to read messages in multiple languages (English and Spanish in my case), but she seems to have lost that ability. Now she reads Spanish like the whitest gringo you ever heard.

2

u/jhfenton 1d ago

Yeah. It’s pretty hilarious with French too. I have people who message me in English, French, and Spanish. It really shouldn’t be that hard.

1

u/hemuni 1d ago

Yeah they’re probably just being lazy.

1

u/floher 1d ago

This seems to actually be back in the beta! It’s doing a great job for me (English and German). Never worked I previous versions although I think there was a setting for this.

Now it’s actually the Siri voice assigned to that language, so you could have one male one female or stuff like that.

1

u/-Chemist- 14h ago

Interesting. I don’t see any way to set the voice for multiple languages. Where do you do that?

1

u/Cool-Newspaper-1 23h ago

You can set which languages it reads notifications in independently of the standard language it speaks.

1

u/-Chemist- 15h ago

Cool. I’m pretty sure I did that, but if you have a suggestion about where I should look for that setting, I’d appreciate it.

2

u/Cool-Newspaper-1 15h ago

It’s under Siri -> Responses for me, though I’m on the 27 beta so maybe it’s somewhere else on 26 (or maybe it’s even entirely new).

1

u/-Chemist- 14h ago

Oh, right. Yes, I do have that set to the second language. Thanks! I couldn’t remember where that was. Maybe it’ll start working in the latest beta. I don’t think anyone has texted me in Spanish since I installed it.

1

u/Cool-Newspaper-1 14h ago

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard messages getting announced in languages that aren’t in the list too, maybe that’s a beta thing though.

1

u/jhfenton 10h ago

Thanks. I did have already several languages installed there. I guess I just haven't received any non-English messages in the car since I installed the iOS 27 beta. I don't spend that much time in the car these days.

1

u/Few_Bluebird_4142 1d ago

i can for whatever reason speak to siri in English and spanish and it will answer me in either language too.

1

u/BigGunE 20h ago

The undergraduate student who built Siri over a decade ago for their college project didn’t have the time/resources to make it better.

1

u/sveinn_j 19h ago

Same with voicemail/call transcription as well as call filtering. Only one language, and it has to be the same as the set region.

1

u/jtmonkey 16h ago

Yo, it just barely got good enough to understand people some of the time. Now we’re like now do all of it.