Patent Document ID: 9646609
Application ID: 14835520

Base Claim:
1. A method for operating a virtual assistant, the method comprising: at an electronic device having a processor and memory: receiving, from a first user device, a first pronunciation for a first named entity; receiving, from a second user device, a second pronunciation for the first named entity; storing the first and second pronunciations for the first named entity in a shared pronunciation lexicon; receiving, from a third user device, audio data representing user speech and a context of the third user device, the user speech including the first named entity in spoken form; and performing speech-to-text conversion on the audio data to generate a textual representation of the user speech, the speech-to-text conversion comprising selecting, for comparison with the audio data, the stored first pronunciation or the stored second pronunciation for the first named entity based on the context.

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Claim 12:
12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, from a fifth user device, audio data representing a second user speech and a context of the fifth user device; determining a relevant subset of the shared pronunciation lexicon based on the context of the fifth user device; determining a response to the second user speech, wherein the response comprises a second named entity; determining a pronunciation for the second named entity using the determined relevant subset of the shared pronunciation lexicon; and transmitting the response and the pronunciation for the second named entity to the fourth fifth user device.