[Athen] New language detection in JAWS 2025

[Deborah Armstrong via athen-list]

The reason this is relevant for alt media specialists is if you have students who use JAWS, you may not need to mark up foreign language passages in books. This is time-consuming work, so check if JAWS will accurately read the textbook without you needing to do extra work.
If you do need to mark up a passage, you would select that passage, select the review tab on the ribbon, then  select language and then select set proofing language. That will add code that allows screen readers to switch to the appropriate language voice. Works for students using JAWS or NVDA, Voiceover on both Mac and iPhone, and possibly Narrator depending on the version they have. It is also a necessary step for creating a Braille transcription from a word file.
If you use a screen reader yourself, these steps haven't changed since Word 2007, but the keystrokes have. Currently they are alt-r (to call up the review tab) U to call up languages, and L to set the proofing language. You'll still have to arrow through the list of languages after you press alt-R u L, because currently Word doesn't seem to have first-letter navigation active on that particular list.
Of course, there are places where the alt media specialist cannot mark up the book. I'm thinking about the language labs from McGrawHill, Cengage and Pearson. This is where, if the user can work with JAWS, that automatic language detection is very powerful.
And for a JAWS user, the language detection seems pretty good. I tested it with German and Spanish, the languages I do know somewhat.
It can be also helpful, especially for the new language learner to install the free Vocalizer Expressive voices for the chosen language. For example, there are ten separate voices for Spanish, and when I was learning it, I found I liked some of them better than others and I had a lot of fun playing with them, while doing my homework.
When I was taking an exam online, I switched between the many Spanish voices to ensure I read the questions accurately. The JAWS help will explain how to install these voices, and I can also assist if anyone runs in to trouble.
Regarding automatic language switching, you will find the configuration choices under Text Processing in Settings Center. If you are new to settings center in JAWS, be sure you take some time to learn how to use it; settings are specific to a particular application unless you choose default, in which case they will apply unless overridden by an app-specific setting.
In Quick settings you can only turn detect language on or off.

>From the JAWS help:

Language Processing
Detect Language
This group of radio buttons allows you to configure automatic language detection. This feature works with synthesizers, such as Eloquence or Vocalizer Expressive, that support multiple languages. For Vocalizer Expressive, you must install voices for a particular language for this detection to work properly.
Select Based On Markup of document and web page to have JAWS detect changes in languages within documents which support language tags. JAWS then reads using the appropriate synthesizer voice for the specified language. For example, if JAWS finds Spanish tags on a Web page, that text is spoken using a Spanish voice.
Select Based On Text (Vocalizer Expressive only) to have JAWS detect the language based on the types of text characters used in the document and read using the appropriate Vocalizer Expressive voice. For example, if JAWS detects Arabic characters, JAWS will switch to an Arabic voice for reading, if available.
Select Based on AI predictions to have JAWS use an AI algorithm that runs on your computer to determine the language of a piece of text before speaking it. JAWS then switches to the appropriate voice for that language, if available.
Select Off if you do not want JAWS to change the synthesizer voice when reading text written in another language.
When Detect Language Based On Text
This group of radio buttons lets you determine how numbers are spoken when language detection is set to "Based On Text." You can choose to have numbers spoken using the primary voice, or you can have numbers read using a voice that matches the language context of the numbers.
The default is to read numbers using the primary voice.
Enhanced right-to-left (RTL) support
Select this check box to make sure that right-to-left text is spoken in the correct order by the synthesizer.
This check box is cleared by default for all languages except Arabic and Hebrew.
Generalize Dialect
This check box determines if JAWS switches to a different language to account for dialects within the same base language. For example, if this feature is selected, and JAWS is reading, in English, a Web page that supports U.S. English, U.K. English, and Australian English, JAWS will not switch between languages since the base language is English. However, if JAWS encounters another language, such as German or French, it will switch to that language.
This check box is selected by default and is only available when language detection is set to "Based On Markup of document and web page."

-Debee


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