My iPhone has two options when I press ‘add field’ Phonetic and pronunciation. What’s the difference?
Thanks. Yes adding a phonetic spelling in these fields helps Siri convert your voice to text properly (not text to voice) what I’m curious is which of these two fields to use.
This article says to use the phonetic field.
Nobody knows. Or at least Google doesn't know. One assumes iOS developers know. I believe "Phonetic" is older and that Siri uses it. That works on my wife's last name.
I think "Pronunciation" is a more recent addition. You'd think it would hold a sound field, but it appears to be a text field. When I set the keyboard to use voice entry and said my wife's name iOS just inserted her name (so Siri has learned the sound there).
I wonder if Pronunciation was added because "phonetic" doesn't make sense for non-phonetic languages (ex: Chinese), but somehow we ended up with both.
I do have on idea. The iOS 11 user guide documents that the built-in screen reader can be told how to pronounce certain words. (Settings:General:Accessibility:Speech:Pronunciations).
Maybe text entered in Contacts.app pronunciation field is used by screen readers to speak someone's name. So one could enter phonetic text here too.
My guess (only a guess) is to use the phonetic field to guide Siri.
I think the pronunciation field is for screen readers.
Contact phonetic first name vs pronunciation first name
