Amazon might be working on a real-time universal language translator feature for Alexa: Report

Amazon may be soon coming up with plans to develop Alexa into a real-time universal language translator. [caption id=“attachment_4293497” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Amazon Alexa[/caption] According to a report by Yahoo Finance, Amazon is finding ways to make Alexa more flexible for different cultures and languages. Like other digital assistants such as **Google Assistant**  and **Bixby** , **Alexa** will also bring capabilities of a translator on board. However, it expects to move beyond the regular use of translators, which often include few words and short phrases. Amazon wants Alexa to get the cultural context right, which is currently a challenge on real-time translators. So for instance, if you are in Japan at a wedding and since the Japanese cultural milieu with the elders is formal, Alexa will tell you the appropriate way to speak to the father of the bride as opposed to say the master of ceremonies. Alexa will have to be fed the cultural knowledge of a place and a setting, to ensure that its real-time translation includes the cultural context during translation. By using its translating capabilities in real-time, it intends to help people during emergency situations especially if someone is stuck in a foreign country. And Amazon plans to keep the translation device-agnostic. Currently, Alexa can translate certain short phrases and few words in Spanish, German, French and Italian. However, it is yet to work as a full time translating tool. Amazon has not officially commented on this development. It could be a challenge for Amazon’s Alexa to see how far it can expand its language translation capabilities. Whether it would be from English to any other language or between various languages themselves. Meanwhile, it recently introduced Amazon Alexa Skill Kit Library which would give sound effects to Alexa skills.