The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2022 - 36

GEEKSPEAK By Jost Zetzsche
Voice Recognition
in Windows 11
Operating systems have become increasingly
less important now that so much has moved
to the cloud and so many browser-based
applications don't care whether you run them
on Windows, macOS/iOS, Linux, or Android.
O
n the other hand,
there are still plenty
of applications that
depend either completely
or mostly on the operating
system, including many of
the translation environment
tools we use. I say this, of
course, because Windows
11, a major new operating
system version, has officially
been released, and you likely
have already been prodded
to upgrade or at least check
whether your computer's
hardware is compatible.
(Assuming, of course, that
you use Windows in the
first place.)
I'm always excited to
look at each new version
of Windows. Not so much
because of the new and
widely touted features (most
of which are really lame in
this version, if you ask me),
but to find out what new
multilingual features are
available-such as newly
translated versions, new
kinds of keyboards, or new
voice recognition languages. I
was disappointed to discover
that this version of Windows
is localized into exactly the
same number of languages as
version 10, and I was unable
to find anything relating to
additional keyboard layouts.
But the " voice typing "
options have gone from
seven languages to...a LOT.
Specifically, the following
languages are now supported:
Bulgarian, Chinese (China,
Hong Kong, Taiwan),
Croatian, Czech, Danish,
Dutch (Netherlands), English
36 The ATA Chronicle | January/February 2022
(Australia, Canada, India,
New Zealand, U.K., U.S.),
Estonian, Finnish, French
(Canada and France),
German, Gujarati, Hindi,
Hungarian, Irish, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Maltese,
Marathi, Norwegian,
Polish, Portuguese (Brazil
and Portugal), Romanian,
Russian, Slovak, Slovenian,
Spanish (Mexico and Spain),
Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai,
Turkish, and Vietnamese.
To me, this is really
great news. While it was
possible to dictate in
most of these languages
on a Mac or with a rather
convoluted system via a cell
phone and an automatic
transferal to a PC, things
will become much easier for
translators into the newly
supported languages. To
be clear, this refers to the
Windows internal " voice
typing " (which, by the way,
you install alongside the
keyboard of the language
in question), so it's not
as advanced as Dragon
voice recognition. This
means that there are no
customized commands and
no training or incremental
NOTE
1
improvement, but it's still
really quite good. I can
personally speak only for
English and German, but
my sense is that most of
these languages will be more
or less supported with the
same level of accuracy. My
assumption is reinforced
because punctuation is also
now available in each of
the respective languages
rather than only in English.
(See the list of dictationlanguage-specific
voice
commands at the link at the
end of this article.1
)
So, congrats to all you
Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech,
Danish, Estonian, Finnish,
Gujarati, Hindi, Hungarian,
Irish, Japanese, Korean,
Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese,
Marathi, Norwegian, Polish,
Romanian, Russian, Slovak,
Slovenian, Swedish, Tamil,
Telugu, Thai, Turkish, and
Vietnamese speakers!
My tips to those who have
never tried voice recognition:
Don't translate in single
words but in longer
fragments or even sentences.
Use your regular voice rather
than a special dictation voice.
And be aware that there is a
little learning curve.
" Use Voice Typing to Talk Instead of Type on Your PC "
(Microsoft Support Page), https://bit.ly/voice-Windows11.
Jost Zetzsche is chair of ATA's Translation
and Interpreting Resources Committee. He is the
author of Characters with Character: 50 Ways
to Rekindle Your Love Affair with Language.
jzetzsche@internationalwriters.com
This column has two goals: to inform the community about
technological advances and encourage the use and
appreciation of technology among translation professionals.
www.atanet.org
https://www.bit.ly/voice-Windows11 http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2022

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