Languages· 4 min read
Hinglish is a language
Designing calls for how India actually speaks: mixed, switching, and rarely in one script.
By ZenVoice team
“Kal subah 6:30 wali airport duty pe report kar rahe ho na?” is not Hindi with English words dropped in by mistake. It is how millions of people talk at work every day. A voice agent that only understands textbook Hindi or textbook English will mishear it.
Understand the mix
Speech recognition has to expect code-mix: an English number inside a Hindi sentence, a Marathi word in a Hindi reply, “haan sir, haan” meaning a confident yes. Getting this right is the difference between a call that flows and one that keeps asking “sorry, could you repeat that?”.
Switch when they do
When a parent answers an admissions call in Tamil, the agent should not carry on in Hindi. It should switch, in the same breath, and keep the conversation going. Voice and understanding move together, so the agent is never speaking one language and listening for another.
Say numbers the way people do
- Times as people say them: “subah saadhe chhe baje”, not a string of digits.
- Dates relative to today: “kal”, only when it really is tomorrow.
- Amounts in lakh and crore, not millions.
ZenVoice speaks English and ten Indian languages, including everyday code-mix. The test we care about is simple: does the person on the other end feel understood?
