Google's Voice Search application, which is pre-installed on many Android devices, responds to a RecognizerIntent by displaying the "Speak now" dialog and streaming audio to Google's servers -- the same servers used when a user taps the microphone button on the search widget or the voice-enabled keyboard.
Google's servers currently support English, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. The web search model is available in all three languages, while free-form has primarily been optimized for English. As we work hard to support more models in more languages, and to improve the accuracy of the speech recognition technology we use in our products, Android developers who integrate speech capabilities directly into their applications can reap the benefits as well.