No songs?

[mlktrout]

I have an Alexa (first generation) and Amazon prime with music unlimited. Today I asked Alexa to play songs by my favorite jazz musician, Django Rheinhardt. Alexa said "unable to find songs by Django Rheinhardt."

I asked Alexa to identify Django Rheinhardt and she correctly identified him, reading the first paragraph of his Wikipedia biography to me.

Then I again asked her to play songs by Django Rheinhardt. This time I added "on Amazon music unlimited." She said she was unable to find songs by Django Rheinhardt.

I don't get it. Django Rheinhardt is listed with a great many albums included in my Prime Membership, so why can't Alexa find them?

Thanks to anyone who can help.

[mlktrout]

Never mind. I figured it out. She couldn't understand the correct pronunciation which is ZHYAHNGO. If I said it wrong, like "JANGO" (the way the say it in "Django Unchained" she understood it fine. So now i have to deliberately mispronounce my foreign artists if I want 'em to play. Hilarious.

[jwlv]

I mentioned this before to other people that AI's such as Alexa often have a difficult time with names, especially when it's not pronounced like the way it is spelled. On top of that many artists also intentionally misspell their name, such as Linkin Park (Lincoln Park), Eminem (M & M), N-Sync (In Sync), etc. Non-English names are often slaughtered by Alexa since it was programmed to speak English and it has no idea how to pronounce other languages correctly let alone understand a spoken non-English name.

[Ladrain]

That's one of the things Alexa is lacking - recognition of pronunciation. The guys who made Google Home are trying to up Amazon on this front.