Australia Cortana

[Simon McK]

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere but a search brought up nothing. I was using cortana in Australia through changing the phones region and language, now that cortana is avaliable in Australia, I have switched location back to Australia but cortana tells me she doesn't speak my language.

Can anyone confirm they have Cortana working in Australia, and if so, what region/phone language/speech langugage combo?

Mucho thanks in advance

 

[Entegy]

Having the language on English (Australia), region set to Australia and the speech language set to English UK.

 

[Simon McK]

Bingo - Thank you very much

 

[th3l3g3nd]

I was hoping to be able to hear Jen Taylor's voice...
I'm a little disappointed that when I ask Cortana something, she only displays bing search results...

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Feej AU]

So, I made all the changes for Australia, but the speech feature no longer works. If I try to add a 'reminder', I only get "Sorry, I didn't catch that".

 

[Private Nemesis]

I would guess that's why it is in alpha?
Sent from my Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

 

[tropolite]

I've been playing with Cortana in Australia, and tonight I found I could ask her a few more things which she responded too.

Funny thing is though now I'm getting UK accent AND US Cortana esp if you ask her to tell you a joke or two and then thank her, she may "You bet!"
I do like the US Cortana more so-here's hoping we eventually get to choose if we use a localised version or the original (and the best) Cortana.

 

[Qurber]

Change speech to US, un tick the box "Improve recognition of non-native speakers" and then swap back to UK.

 

[iyae]

Aussie Cortana sucks. That synthesized British accent when you ask her stuff is gross. I switched right back to the US one. The Aussie one also doesn't recommend me good places to eat near by. The US one does

 

[astondg]

EDIT: I reset Cortana & deleted the local Cortana data on phone and I think it's now working as expected. I get Chit Chat, my categories page is no longer blank and I also got prompted with some places nearby that are popular (from Foursquare). The Interests I can add are still limited to News & Weather, but I think that's just the limits of the Alpha now.

I switched from the US beta to the Australian alpha and all I get from Cortana now are world news headlines and the weather. If I try to add an Interest the categories page is blank. Also most requests just go to a Bing search. I still have quiet hours and reminders ( including reminders to go to & leave work). Seems very limited, I can't even get the Tech & Health news headlines I used to. Is this the same for others here who tried the alpha?

 

[thisispants]

I really don't think it was worth announcing Cortana for Australia as an alpha. It's so bad, the negative reflections on the program would surely outweigh any benefit the users may get.

 

[Shoubhik Banerjee]

Alpha is useless.. Surprisingly it somehow understood when i said asked her to "read" the incoming message and that i was "done".. Apart from that all i get is "i ddnt catch/get that".. Using cortana in india.. With uk as language.. Have switched back to beta.. Us region and language..! :-\

 

[marratj]

I really don't think it was worth announcing Cortana for Australia as an alpha. It's so bad, the negative reflections on the program would surely outweigh any benefit the users may get.

Still, giving her voice commands, like playing music albums, setting reminders or ask about routes and traffic works fine and is more than can be done without Cortana.

 

[ChardJeffrey]

Qurber suggestion below works to fix this problem

Change speech to US, un tick the box "Improve recognition of non-native speakers" and then swap back to UK.

 

[ChardJeffrey]

This works thanks

 

[Topherious]

I just saw the 1st real sign of Australian localisation in our Cortana Alpha. I asked her "What do you eat?" and she replied "If I were capable, I think I would eat Vegemite every day."

Has anyone else seen any other Australia specific replies?

 

[Skamath]

I was hoping to be able to hear Jen Taylor's voice...
I'm a little disappointed that when I ask Cortana something, she only displays bing search results...

Am I doing something wrong?

So, I made all the changes for Australia, but the speech feature no longer works. If I try to add a 'reminder', I only get "Sorry, I didn't catch that".

Alpha is useless.. Surprisingly it somehow understood when i said asked her to "read" the incoming message and that i was "done".. Apart from that all i get is "i ddnt catch/get that".. Using cortana in india.. With uk as language.. Have switched back to beta.. Us region and language..! :-\

If you have everything set to English AUS then the only thing you need to do is go to speech settings in the US ENG uncheck the box which is improve recognition for non native speakers. then change the language back to Eng UK and you will be laughing.

 

[neo158]

I really don't think it was worth announcing Cortana for Australia as an alpha. It's so bad, the negative reflections on the program would surely outweigh any benefit the users may get.

What were you expecting from an Alpha?

 

[astondg]

What were you expecting from an Alpha?

Honestly more than we got. The only interests we can add to Cortana are a limited selection of news articles and the weather. Even in the news interests I used to have to science & tech news and health & fitness news headlines that are no longer available in Australia. Maybe these came from US sources, but they were pretty generic articles that would definitely be of value here so I can't see why they removed them.

I understand some things would need to be removed but I'd rather that they left in as many interests as they could and the Alpha state would just mean that they might not always be relevant to Australia or not always provide the value that they do in the US/UK.

 

[neo158]

Honestly more than we got. The only interests we can add to Cortana are a limited selection of news articles and the weather. Even in the news interests I used to have to science & tech news and health & fitness news headlines that are no longer available in Australia. Maybe these came from US sources, but they were pretty generic articles that would definitely be of value here so I can't see why they removed them.

I understand some things would need to be removed but I'd rather that they left in as many interests as they could and the Alpha state would just mean that they might not always be relevant to Australia or not always provide the value that they do in the US/UK.

Then what would be the point of the beta, if the Alpha version had ALL the features of the beta there would be no reason for the beta to exist. Tell you what lets just change the beta version in the US, UK and China to Alpha, would that make you happy?