You can use the Alexa Skills Kit to create custom skills in multiple languages. A custom skill can support a single language, or any combination of the following available languages:
Customers who interact with Alexa in a particular language can use skills that support that language. For example, a customer might set their Alexa device to use German. That customer can enable and use any published skills that support German that are available in the Alexa Skills Store in their country or region.
Tip: Supporting multiple languages makes your skill available to more customers. Consider supporting as many languages as you can to increase your customer base. For example, if you support English (US), consider adding support for the other English locales, such as English (UK) and English (IN).
Note: You can add additional languages to an existing skill. For any new skills you create, you can select the initial language for the skill. For instance, if you create a new skill, you could choose German to make it a German skill, and then optionally add English later.
These instructions cover multiple-language custom skills. For details about these steps, see the following sections.
For details, see the section Design the voice user interface for each language your skill supports.
Include logic in your code to check incoming requests (IntentRequest, LaunchRequest, and SessionEndedRequest) for the customer's language and respond in the correct language. For example, if the customer launched your skill in German, your skill should return German text-to-speech content that Alexa can speak to the customer.
For details, see section Implement code changes.
Tip: For better latency, deploy your code to multiple endpoints.
For details, see the section Provide multiple endpoints for your skill.
Configure the skill in the developer console with the new endpoints, the new voice user interface, and other language-specific information.
For details, see the section Update the skill configuration with language-specific details.
Test the new language version of your skill.
For details, see Test Skills in the Alexa Developer Console.
Configure the distribution for your skill to make it available to customers in relevant locations.
For details, see the section Decide where to distribute your skill.
The configuration for a skill in the Alexa developer console provides the Alexa service with the information needed to perform the following actions:
When you add multiple languages to a skill, some of the information in the configuration applies to all languages, while some applies only to a single language.
For each language that your custom skill supports, you create a voice user interface (UI). This voice UI includes the following items:
For details about these items, see the following topics:
When you choose your invocation name and write sample utterances, make sure to use words and phrases appropriate for native speakers of the language.
For details about setting up a new language and adding a language-specific voice UI, see Update the skill configuration with language-specific details, later in this topic.
Implement code changes for a custom skillCreate your cloud-based service for your skill so that it can handle requests from all languages you support. For example, if your skill supports both German and English (UK), the same code must perform the following actions:
You can determine the language used to invoke the skill by checking the locale property included in all requests sent to your service (for example, LaunchRequest or IntentRequest). For details about the different types of requests your skill can receive, see Request Format.
that are sent to your service don't include the
locale
property.
The following example shows the locale property en-US as part of the request object.
{
"request": {
"type": "LaunchRequest",
"requestId": "EdwRequestId.00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
"timestamp": "2016-06-14T20:59:24Z",
"locale": "en-US"
}
}
The following table shows the locale property locale-code and language options.
ar-SA
Arabic (SA)
de-DE
German (DE)
en-AU
English (AU)
en-CA
English (CA)
en-GB
English (UK)
en-IN
English (IN)
en-US
English (US)
es-ES
Spanish (ES)
es-MX
Spanish (MX)
es-US
Spanish (US)
fr-CA
French (CA)
fr-FR
French (FR)
hi-IN
Hindi (IN)
it-IT
Italian (IT)
ja-JP
Japanese (JP)
nl-NL
Dutch (NL)
pt-BR
Portuguese (BR)
Although Amazon doesn't require feature parity across languages, customers can choose the language for their devices and switch between languages. Therefore, a customer might interact with your skill in more than one language, so providing a consistent experience across languages is important.
Provide multiple endpoints for your skillThe Alexa service currently determines which endpoint to call based on the customer's location and the endpoints you provide. You can specify any combination of the following endpoints for your skill.
North America
Customers in North America (customers who registered their device with the .com, .ca, or .com.br site)
Europe and India
.de, .fr, or .co.uk).in)Far East
Customers in Japan and Australia/New Zealand (customers who registered their device with .co.jp or .com.au)
If the preferred endpoint for the customer's region isn't available, Alexa calls the default endpoint.
If you choose to use multiple endpoints, you must deploy the same code to each one. The Alexa service can send a customer request in a particular language to any of your endpoints. For example, suppose that your skill supports both English (US) and German. An English request from a customer using amazon.de would go to the Europe endpoint (if provided). The code at that endpoint must be able to handle and respond appropriately to an English-language request. Use the locale property provided in the request to identify the customer's language, as described in Implement code changes for a custom skill, earlier in this topic.
If you use AWS Lambda to host your skill service, determine which of the allowed AWS Lambda regions is best for your skill configuration. For details, see Select the optimal region for your AWS Lambda function.
Tip: For better latency, consider deploying your code to multiple endpoints.
Update the skill configuration with language-specific detailsTo add support for additional languages, you must add the language to the skill configuration and provide the language-specific information, such as your new voice user interface. This language relates to the language that the user selects on their Alexa-enabled device and has no bearing on their physical location.
To add a language to an existing skill
After you've added at least one additional language to a skill, you can switch between languages with the language drop-down menu.
To update the skill with language-specific details
To expand your customer reach, you can add additional locales of the same language to your custom skill. For example, if you support American English (en_US), you can try to reach customers in different regions by adding UK English (en_GB) and India English (en_IN) locales to your custom skill. For more information on how to do this, see Add additional locales of the same language to your custom skills.
Decide where to distribute your skillThe Where would you like this skill to be available? option determines the countries and regions in which your customers can enable and use your custom skill. Your customers can access all skills that meet all of the following conditions:
.com site..de site.The distribution applies to the skill, not to individual languages. Amazon makes available all language versions of the skill in the specified countries and regions, barring content-policy restrictions.
Important: Customers can choose the language they want to use for their devices, and they aren't constrained by their location when choosing the language. For example, a customer that uses a .de account can choose to use a different language from German, such as English (UK), for their Alexa-enabled devices. However, changing the language doesn't affect the skills catalog available to the .de account in the skills store. Therefore, to make a skill available to customers who use .de accounts, you must include a German version of the skill in the skills store.
You choose to distribute your custom skill in all countries and regions where Amazon distributes skills. You configure the skill with just English (UK) and no other languages. When you choose this configuration, you get the following result:
You choose to distribute your custom skill only in Germany because your skill's functionality is region-specific. You configure the skill with German and English (UK) for the languages. When you choose this configuration, you get the following result:
To choose how broadly you want your custom skill distributed to customers and users, make your selection under Where would you like this skill to be available? Here, you can select from the following two options:
Select In all countries and regions where Amazon distributes skills when the following factors apply to your skill:
Select Selected countries and regions, and then select the applicable countries, when the following factors apply:
Tip: Unless you have good reason to limit availability, the best option is to choose In all countries and regions where Amazon distributes skills.
Last updated: Jul 15, 2024
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