Google tests teaching you word pronunciation

I have a confession to make. On a recent episode of Workflow, I went on camera to recommend the Halide camera app. Everything went perfectly until the video made its way online, at which point the comments started rolling in to politely inform me I’d been pronouncing Halide completely wrong for the past year. Apparently, it’s pronounced “hay-lyde,” not “ha-li-day.” What a nightmare.

Turns out, I really could have used Google’s latest feature, which Android Police reports spells out words phonetically when you search for them. So, thanks to a new Learn to Pronounce option, “onomatopoeia” becomes “o-nuh-ma-tuh-pee-uh,” and “Halide” would, theoretically, become “hay-lyde.” It even allows you to select between American and British pronunciations of the same word.

Google already gives you the option of listening to how a word is pronounced via a small speaker icon that appears next to a word. This latest feature could be a much better option if you’re in a situation where having your phone repeatedly say “Halide” out loud might be inappropriate.

We haven’t been able to replicate this functionality for ourselves, but we’ve contacted Google to see if this is a feature it’s planning on rolling out more widely anytime soon. In the meantime, be sure to learn from my mistake and give any new words a quick Google search before trying to pronounce them on camera.