which of the following TTS(Text To Speech) engines are more natural?

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Royal999

#437905 Fri, 02 Nov 07 10:11 AM

i am Learning my Active vocabulary as American english and my passive vocabulary as British, irish, scottish, Indian, Australian and south African English.

i looking for highest quality, most lifelike and clearest TTS sound that is used in United States.

Please help me if you are Native, and answer by rating for example:
x is best, y is very good, z is good, etc or
x is first, y is second, z is third, etc.

and finally, this is the link :

http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx

Thanks.

Royal999

Joined on Sat, Jan 6 2007

New Member (02)

American English, Vocabulary

Kooyeen

#438088 Fri, 02 Nov 07 10:22 PM

Hi,
I'm not a native speaker, but if you want my opinion... I would never trust a TTS engine. I heard there are some excellent ones, if you look at them from a technical point of view. If you look at them from an ESL learner's point of view, then I'm afraid they are all barely decent.
Consider all the features of speech, personal and regional preferences, consider how stress and intonation vary in speech.
Can a TTS system take all those variables into account and be a good model for a learner? I'm 100% sure the answer is no.

My advice: if you want to learn vocabulary and pronunciation at the same time, always listen to "real people" talking. Smile [:)]

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,973)

If you don't have a sense of humor already, it's about time you buy one.

Intonations, Pronunciation, Vocabulary

Royal999

#438385 Sat, 03 Nov 07 05:43 PM

Every day, i see many words in english and i look at them, i only have to use a good TTS and how can i find real sounds of Americans to use them?

what do you recommend?

1- best TTS?
2- phonetics?
3- real human sound? if yes, from where?

Royal999

Phonetics

Kooyeen

#438438 Sat, 03 Nov 07 07:29 PM

Royal999 wrote:

1- best TTS?
2- phonetics?
3- real human sound? if yes, from where?

Best TTS?
I have no idea, since I'll never use one. TTS are meant for blind people, not ESL learners.

Phonetics?
What do you mean? If you want to know more about pronunciation and improve it, I have to say that the book (with CDs) "American Accent Training" is a pretty good one.

Real people?
Try listening to news radio stations (CNN radio, FOX News radio, etc.), talk radio stations (NPR, Minnesota Public Radio, etc.), some podcasts in English, or watching videos (on CNN.com, MSNBC.com, YouTube, etc.)
You can find all you need on the net.

Good luck Smile [:)]

Kooyeen

Accents, Accent Training, American accents, Pronunciation, Phonetics