The Slow Death of non-English Languages by Navigation Software

2013-07-12

Ok, that title is a little off. What I really want to do with this post is help to make it a priority for companies that make navigation and or text to speech software a little less English specific (or whatever language it's built for). What am I talking about?

Lots of people use GPS navigation services either built into their car or on their phone. Those navigation services almost always read out the directions. "In 300 feet, turn left at main street" for example.

The problem is that text to speech software doesn't understand pronunciation and so arguably it's slowly killing off the correct pronunciation by teaching everyone, especially children, the wrong way to pronounce things.

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