Siri hasn’t ever really found its footing for a lot of users. For many of us, it’s still more of a punchline than a tool. Still, Siri can still be a powerful way to control your phone. Voice dialing is an obvious example of what Siri can do for you, but not all of your contacts have names that sounds like how they’re spelled. But you can explain to Siri how to say a name in a few easy steps:
- Open the Contacts app on your phone and go to your contact’s entry.
- Press Edit at the bottom of the card, then scroll down and tap Add Field.
- Tap Phonetic First Name from the screen that slides up, then enter the correct pronunciation.
- If you need to provide a phonetic spelling for a hard-to-pronounce last name, repeat Step, but tap Phonetic Last Name instead.
- Once you’ve added phonetic spellings, tap Done to exit that person’s contact card. You should now be able to use Siri’s voice-dialing feature to call that person.
This post was adapted from a tip we originally published in May 2013.
