Siri doesn't pronounce my name correctly. I tried editing the phonetic spelling as it says on many sites, but it doesn't fix the problem. How do I fix this problem?
Siri – How to Get Siri to Pronounce Name Correctly
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You can create iCloud contacts that merge with your GMail contacts. The iPhone will collate the data from both the GMail contact and the iCloud contact. I have this enabled for Hotmail:
- Enabled iCloud syncing for contacts.
- Open Contacts.
- Press the back button (top-left) until you reach Groups.
- Open All iCloud or All from My PC.
- Create a new contact for your wife. Include her full name and phonetic name.
- Press Done.
- Scroll down and check that Linked Cards shows an entry for Unified and GMail. Press Unified.
- Now you can see how your wife's information combining the GMail information and the iCloud phonetic information.
OK I've found out the answer myself.
It turns out that although the Maps app can geocode (find the location of) my address, Siri can't. It must be using a different geocoder to the Apple Maps app.
After much faffing, I found the easiest way to fix this is to drop a marker on my house using the Apple Maps app and then add this to my own contact record as "home". This fixes the problem and allows Siri to know where home is. However it then means my address is incomplete if I use it for other purposes or in other apps). The only way round this seems to be add it back and tag it as "address" (NOT "home") as a second copy of the same address. Really messy.
Clearly this is a bug in Siri which will hopefully be fixed one day (I won't hold my breath). I don't recall having this problem in iOS 5, so I think this was introduced in iOS 6.
Best Answer
When this happens, it's usually because the nickname field is also filled in. The nickname field trumps the phonetic first name field. So if you ever used the Siri command "Call me ..." she would automatically fill in the nickname field, making the phonetic field useless.
To fix the problem, either write the phonetic spelling inside the nickname field, or delete the nickname field and write the phonetic spelling in the phonetic first name field.
Tip: To hear her pronounce your name, you can ask her, "What is my name?"
The advantage of using the phonetic spelling field is that it expresses the property more accurately. However, I noticed that it has a flaw in that it messes with the sorting in the Contacts app (especially if you sort by first name and include an accented character to help with the pronunciation). Therefore, you might want to use the nickname field instead of phonetic spelling.