Official documentation
Implement language identification (Azure Speech, Microsoft Learn)
Microsoft, Microsoft Learn, 2026
Read the originalRead on October 17, 2026
- What it is
- Microsoft's developer documentation for language identification in Azure Speech. It explains at-start and continuous detection, how many candidate languages each mode accepts, and what the service does when the speaker changes language.
- How much weight it carries
- Official documentation for one cloud service, so it states the API's rules and limits, not how accurate detection is. It does not publish error rates. The page describes the current service and can change.
Facts taken from this source
- Azure's continuous language identification does not detect a change of language within a sentence. A Spanish sentence with English words inside it is not detected word by word.
“Continuous LID doesn't support changing languages within the same sentence. For example, if you're primarily speaking Spanish and insert some English words, it doesn't detect the language change per word.” (Continuous language identification)
- Azure Speech returns one of the languages you supplied, even when none of them is spoken in the audio.
“The Speech service returns one of the candidate languages provided even if those languages weren't in the audio.” (Candidate languages)
- Azure Speech's continuous language identification accepts up to 10 candidate languages, while its at-start mode accepts up to four.
“You can include up to four languages for at-start LID or up to 10 languages for continuous LID” (Candidate languages)
- Azure Speech's at-start language identification accepts up to four candidate languages.
“You can include up to four languages for at-start LID” (Candidate languages)