The system receives a voice query at an audio interface and converts the voice query to text. The system can determine pronunciation information during conversion and generate metadata the indicates a pronunciation of one or more words of the query, include phonetic information in the text query, or both. A query includes one or more entities, which may be more accurately identified based on pronunciation. The system searches for information, content, or both among one or more databases based on the generated text query, pronunciation information, user profile information, search histories or trends, and optionally other information. The system identifies one or more entities or content items that match the text query, and retrieves the identified information to provide to the user.