There’s good news for you if you own a Google Home smart speaker and the preferred language on your smartphone is Hindi. According to a blog post by Google, its popular virtual assistant, Google Assistant now understands Hindi on Google Home devices, which means you can say ‘OK, Google’ to trigger the assistant and then ask a question in Hindi. The response from Google Assistant will also be in Hindi. The new feature works on Google Home and Google Home Mini.
There’s some setup you’ll have to do before you go asking Google Assistant to tell you jokes in Hindi. You’ll have to open the Google Home app on your smartphone, click on the Account icon on the lower right corner and select Settings. Then go to the Assistant tab and select Languages. Click on ‘Add a language’. Select "Hindi (Bharat)" (written in Devanagari) as the first language in the list and that’s it; you’re all set to converse with your Google Home smart speaker in Hindi.
With Google Home’s language is set to Hindi, you should be able to ask Google Home the same questions you could in English before, in Hindi. Google Home should even understand commands to connect to other smart devices like lights and air purifiers. The smart speaker should be able to turn on and off connected devices with a single command in Hindi. Like in English, Google Home will be able to give you information about your day, including weather forecasts, calendar appointment details, and news briefs from a source of your choice.
This new language pack availability on Google Home comes eight months after Google rolled out the Hindi language pack for Google Assistant on Android and iOS devices. Purvi Shah, the Technical Program Manager for Assistant had commented back in March, “Google Assistant is truly Indian, it’s your helpful dost that speaks our language and understands the things you care about, from finding biryani recipes, to pulling up the latest cricket score, or finding directions to the nearest ATM." Here is a full list of commands you can try with your Hindi-speaking Google Home speaker.