Alexa, open Palabras Británicas

Alexa, launch Palabras Británicas (2019)

🏆 Award 🏆 Best Multimodal Experience (Spain Store Skills) in the Alexa Skills Challenge: Multimodal

💬 Voice interaction

“Alexa, lanza palabras británicas” (“launch British words”) is one of the phrases to learn new British English vocabulary with Alexa. You can also adapt the experience to your level of English by asking, during the conversation, to:

Spell a word with “deletrea”, repeat it with “repite”, or even skip to another word with “no lo sé” (“I don’t know”).
Switch your English level to basic, intermediate or advanced with “cambiar a nivel …” (“switch to … level”).
Switch to another learner by their color with “cambia a jugador …” (“switch to … player”).

🎯 Goal

Voice interfaces like Alexa aren’t just for games: applying this technology directly to education makes them a great support for learning. In this case, we used them to help people learn a language whose pronunciation differs from its spelling, such as English. Learning a language is a challenge when it comes to learning new words. Vocabulary is the key to becoming proficient in any language, but memorizing it isn’t a good method for everyone. And that’s not the only challenge: in some languages, the way words are pronounced differs from the way they’re written.

Based on the flashcard method for learning concepts, this Alexa skill helps Spanish speakers learn English words by listening to them (and seeing them, if you have a device with a screen like an Echo Spot or Echo Show).

🤖 Channel

Amazon Alexa. A multimodal experience for devices with a screen (multimodal) and without a screen (voice-first).

🌍 Reach: languages and countries.

Available in every country that uses Alexa in Spanish from Spain (es-ES).

💻 Which technologies and libraries did we use?

Amazon Alexa features:

APL for the full multimodal experience on devices with a screen: you get visual support for each word (just like a real flashcard), including touch selection of level and player.

💎 How did we build this voice app?

We handled the ideation and product creation. We conceptualized and defined the minimum viable product, then designed the conversational experience and the multimodal experience for visual and touch interaction, and built the Alexa skill around that experience.

This time we prioritized a useful product, running several iterations and tests with people with different profiles, along with a conversational experience that’s robust to the different ways Alexa users express themselves.

🗓 Key dates

02/06/2019: Launch. The skill is live in the Amazon store in Spain.
04/12/2019: We won the award for best Spanish-language Alexa skill in the Alexa Skills Challenge: Multimodal, on the Amazon Alexa blog.

🔗 More information

On our blog: Alexa, open Palabras Británicas.
In the Amazon Alexa store:
- amazon.es.
Announcing the winners of the Alexa Skills Challenge Multimodal, on the Amazon Alexa blog, April 2019.
The best Alexa skills for learning English, playing and exercising this summer, in La Información (in Spanish).
This summer will be easier with Alexa, in Periodista Digital, July 2019 (in Spanish).