Chapter 8
Localizing Responses

While it’s easy to start on a new skill focusing on a single language, eventually you’ll reach a point where you’ll want to expand your skill’s exposure to a larger audience, including users in locations who speak languages different than your skill’s first language. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone to conform to your skill’s language; in fact, most people would probably just not use your skill at all if it isn’t available in their native tongue.

In this chapter, we’re going to see how to add support for additional languages to an Alexa skill, adding support for Spanish to the Star Port 75 Travel skill. We’ll also see how to test localized skills and use SSML to help Alexa properly pronounce non-English words. Let’s start by translating our interaction model so that Alexa can hear and understand what a user says to her, even if spoken in another language.