Indian smartphone users can now navigate through Google Maps in 10 different languages.
Since Google Map is available only in English, many non-English users have a problem in finding the exact location for its translations being inaccurate.
To address this problem Google has built an ensemble of learned models to transliterate names of Latin script of names of places into 10 Indian languages of Hindi, Bangla, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Odia.
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For instance, the Hindi acronym for the word ‘NIT’ is pronounced as ‘en-aye-tee’ and not as the English word ‘nit’, which becomes very confusing for users.
As a result, a person not well versed in English may land up in a totally different place using the Google Map.
Google has claimed that its systems are now better equipped to identify millions of important places across India in these 10 languages, thereby increasing the coverage by nearly twenty-fold in some languages, a report stated.
This will assist non-English Google Maps users to locate bus stops, clinics, train stations, grocery stores and other frequented places in their native languages in a hassle-free manner.