topic What is the best way to handle a multilingual call? in Discussion Forum

What is the best way to handle a multilingual call?

beaver — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:29:05 GMT

I have custom callouts, and my runMenu action contains both French and English content.

I can't find a way to make both languages sound perfect.

Currently, I set my action locale to French. For the English parts, I use SSML with the

tag. The French sounds pretty good, but the English is okay, though not perfect.

I tried the other way around: setting the action locale to English and using a lang tag for French on the French parts. However, the French pronunciation was very poor.

Is there a better way to do this?

Re: What is the best way to handle a multilingual call?

Alex_Sberna — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 21:13:05 GMT

Hi,

Let me reach out to the team and I'll see what advice they have.

Thanks,

Re: What is the best way to handle a multilingual call?

beaver — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 15:53:18 GMT

Any news on this ?

Re: What is the best way to handle a multilingual call?

Alex_Sberna — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:06:19 GMT

Hi, yes, I'm actually writing up a longer response that may turn into a tutorial because I think others would benefit, but the short of it is that the Voice API doesn't respect the `<voice>` tag in SSML, and the voice is set by the `locale` field, so, unfortunately you can't have multiple voices in one prompt.

That said, you could configure two `playFile` instructions to play back to back, each one with its own `locale` set. You could have the `playFile` instruction play before the menu, and have those `playFile` instructions play before the runMenu action.

Like I said, I am working on a demo application that shows how to do all this, but that is the basic information if you want to try to get a head start yourself first.