{"id":15114,"date":"2017-11-30T17:54:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T17:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/natural-language-understanding\/"},"modified":"2021-12-09T13:24:50","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T13:24:50","slug":"natural-language-understanding","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu","title":{"rendered":"Natural Language Understanding (NLU)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Does Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Natural language understanding (NLU) is an aspect of natural language processing<\/a> (NLP) that focuses on how to train an artificial intelligence (AI<\/a>) system to parse<\/a> and process spoken language in a way that is not exclusive to a single task or a dataset.<\/p>\n

NLU uses speech to text (STT<\/a>) to convert spoken language into character-based messages and text to speech (TTS<\/a>) algorithms to create output. The technology plays an integral role in the development of chatbots<\/a> and intelligent digital assistants<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Techopedia Explains Natural Language Understanding (NLU)<\/span><\/h2>\n

One easy way to understand natural language understanding is by looking at available consumer services and business products that model natural language understanding. For example, Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa performs natural language understanding work in the context of hearing and deciphering user inputs. <\/p>\n

A similar natural language understanding engine is built into Amazon \u201cLex,\u201d an enterprise service for building machine learning platforms. By understanding how natural language understanding is applied to these applications, it is easy to see how natural language understanding involves the comprehension of language input.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Does Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Mean? Natural language understanding (NLU) is an aspect of natural language processing (NLP) that focuses on how to train an artificial intelligence (AI) system to parse and process spoken language in a way that is not exclusive to a single task or a dataset. NLU uses speech to text […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[243,269,275],"class_list":["post-15114","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-artificial-intelligence","definitioncat-machine-learning","definitioncat-software-bots"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is Natural Language Understanding (NLU)? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Natural Language Understanding and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Natural Language Understanding (NLU)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Natural Language Understanding and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-09T13:24:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Natural Language Understanding (NLU)\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-30T17:54:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-09T13:24:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu\"},\"wordCount\":188,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/33013\/natural-language-understanding-nlu\",\"name\":\"What is Natural Language Understanding (NLU)? 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