Day For It: Amazon Alexa Now Understands Aussie Lingo

Day For It: Amazon Alexa Now Understands Aussie Lingo
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Amazon is teaching Alexa how to talk Australian, so now you can ask her to help you wake up at ‘sparrow’s fart’, ask if it’s ‘bucketing down’ outside and to play you a ‘banger’. You can also ask her advice on if you should ‘chuck a sickie’. Yeah, nah.

Amazon has teamed up with comedy duo The Inspired Unemployed, whose short vid announcing it was, in fact, a day for it has clocked nearly 900,000 views on Instagram alone, as well as Sophie Monk, to get the Aussie slang right.

Alexa now understands over 100 Aussie phrases, including the tweaks to the English language we all make.

Before pushing the true blue vernacular through its personal assistant, Amazon did some research. It said a study it conducted revealed the sense of pride the nation has for our ‘Strayan phrases, and that more people cared about our choice of words when it comes to an Aussie identity than they did sport.

Apparently, 22 per cent of us aged 25-34 use slang in professional documents like essays and presentations. Or articles, it seems. ‘Ken Oath.

It’s no surprise ‘yeah, nah’ is the most popular phrase we all use, with 38 per cent of the group Amazon surveyed making it their number one. This was followed by ‘mozzie’, with 32 per cent of the votes, ‘barbie’ and ‘give it a crack’ both with 28 percent of the votes, followed by ‘flat out like a lizard drinking’ at 21 per cent. All of these phrases can now be understood by Alexa.

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Amazon said ‘footy’, ‘devo’ and ‘barra’ are already among the Aussie terms most frequently used by Alexa customers. But now you can strike up a conversation with Alexa by asking for a chicken parmi recipe or by telling her ‘day for it’.

Test out Alexa’s Aussie knowledge on Alexa-enabled devices like Echo Dot smart speakers, Echo Show smart screens, Fire TV devices or via the Alexa app.


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