How To Enable Apple Intelligence to Announce Hebrew Contacts with Siri

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If you often receive WhatsApp messages from contacts with Hebrew names, you might notice that Siri can read out the message content but doesn’t announce who sent it. This can be frustrating, especially if you want to know who the message is from without pulling out your phone.

Here’s a simple way to improve the situation. First, try setting an English nickname for your contacts. This can be done in your contacts app. For instance, if your contact’s name is in Hebrew, you can add an English nickname, such as “John” or “Mom,” to that contact’s details. Once you do this, Siri tends to recognize and announce these nicknames when you ask her to call or message that contact.

Another tip is to check your Siri settings. Make sure that Siri is set to speak notifications and messages aloud. You can find this option under Settings > Siri & Search > Announce Notifications. Turn it on if it isn’t already.

If you want a more consistent solution, consider asking Apple to improve how Siri handles non-Latin scripts in contacts. Providing feedback directly to Apple can help them enhance Siri’s ability to recognize contacts with Hebrew or other non-English names.

In the meantime, creating English nicknames is a quick and easy workaround. It helps Siri identify your contacts more clearly when reading out messages. Give it a try, and you should start getting more helpful notifications from Siri.