New Speech??

[Steve Holmes]

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When I first used Espeak, I really wondered what I might be getting
into.  It sounded awkward but now I'm so used to it that I think little
of the slight British accent applied to some words and all that.  I now
run it about as fast as it will go:).

On Thu, Sep 07, 2006 at 09:21:09AM -0500, John Heim wrote:
> 
>  I'd be interested to hear how it compares with a modern commercial
> > synth for someone with hearing difficulties, for the purpose of
> > intelligibility.  Its speech isn't as natural as the commercial synths
> > of course, but that's not necessarily the same as intelligibility.
> 
> 
> That's a good point. In fact, I was thinking about that on the bus on the 
> way home last night. Somebody told me that they'd heard the new voice for 
> Voiceover for the Mac and it sounded very human. It blew him away, he said. 
> But that guy isn't blind.
> 
> That's what got me thinking. 80% of the time I use JAWS and Windows. The 
> other 20 is speakup and a hardware synth. The default JAWS voice is quite 
> nasally.  You can select voices that sound more natural but they're not as 
> clear.
> 
> In fact, when people want to make sure they're understood, they usually 
> speak in an unnatural tone. So I take it that you wrote espeak with 
> intelligibility in mind rather than  trying to make it sound "real". If so, 
> you've done a good job.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 

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