The English voice is difficult to place. It's a generic southern accent - that is, from south east of a divide across England from, say, the Bristol Channel in the South West to the Wash, the bay north of East Anglia. He's speaking RP, or received pronunciation. I think he's from nearer London than Bristol or East Anglia.
Accents over that formerly Anglo-Saxon quarter of England are very different from those in the rest of the country which was once under Viking (Scandinavian) rule.
Thanks. I don't think any Northern English accents are available in the program. Tanner does sound different from a lot of the others in a way I can't put words to, though. The others sound more like BBC newsreaders, perhaps? Or what BBC newsreaders sounded like when I was a kid, before they added more diversity of accents. I just know that a lot of the others don't sound right doing dialog for Bodie and Doyle when I read Professionals fic, while Tanner sounds okay, at least to my ears.
It's something about the vowels, I think. Here is a recording of a couple of the other voices: Harry and Stephanie
I must say I prefer the reading style of these two. It's the same kind of genetic southern accent but less flat delivery. The northern accents are often less easy for foreign listeners to understand, or said to be. I think I detected a suppressed northern accent (Cheshire?) in Harry but I may be imagining that.
BTW neither actor in The Professionals is from the south of England. Martin Shaw was born in Birmingham, and Lewis Collins in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, so their 'southern' accents are slightly Midlands/Northern coloured.
P.S. I live in the north of England but was born in the south so I have a southern accent myself.
From the American voices for me, Henry would be the better reader because for me Oliver reads too fast. I can't understand what he's saying. But the best for my ears and my brain is the UK voice.
Henry and Oliver (and Tanner) are actually reading at the same rate in words per minute. Some voices definitely work better at high WPMs than others, though. That interests me, as I’m not sure what the important factor is.
The speed is adjustable, so you could probably make the Oliver voice slow enough to understand if you were using the program.
I didn’t listen to Tanner, since I know nothing about regional British accents. I did listen to both Henry and Oliver, and I thought their voices were clear enough, although Henry’s seemed rather … cheerful? … for a tense opening scene. Which, of course, a text to voice program wouldn’t be expected to recognize and adjust for.
I’ve tried the text to voice program on my iPad for “reading” fanfic. It’s definitely easier on the eyes, which I appreciate since I have vision issues. The program is okay, and some voices are better than others, but in the iPad program at least there were a lot of odd pronunciations and a general lack of expression.
I also found it hard to get past the fact that the voices aren’t the right voices for my characters, though. In dialogue, especially banter, I hear the characters’ voices in my head when I read well written dialogue, but I wasn’t able to do that with voice to text. Do you get used to it eventually and hear your characters’ voices?
In the beginning, I sometimes felt that Henry's delivery clashed with the mood of a scene. As I listened to him more, I think I got used to it, though. It no longer sounds cheerful to me, but just like the way he talks.
I read mostly on an iPad. Tom, the voice I linked at the end of the post, is an Apple voice. Apple's accessibility settings include an interface for correcting its voices' pronunciations, which is a good feature that Speechify lacks. (If you search Apple's Settings for "pronunciation" you should find it.) The Speechify voices are definitely more natural, though, and understand punctuation better. There are also some Speechify voices labeled "AI Enhanced" that try to adjust their delivery to the meaning of the text. I don't like those because they sometimes get it jarringly wrong, but I expect they will improve with time.
After a lot of time spent listening to computers read, my mind does supply a lot of the missing expression and sometimes even character voices. If you think about it, when you read visually
( ... )
I didn’t find the “pronunciation” setting on the iPad program all that helpful. I was able to teach it to pronounce “Waverly” but I never was successful in getting it to pronounce “Illya” correctly. And a lot of the mispronounced words are just because the selected voice runs words together or cuts them off oddly, which varies from voice to voice and isn’t really a problem that can be fixed by “correcting” the pronunciation.
I also got really frustrated when I spent a lot of time and hard drive space downloading the enhanced version of a voice I liked (it was called Nathan). But every time I select it - snd despite the fact it’s downloaded and selecfed - when I try to use it, the program substitutes a mechanical female voice.
Yes, the highest quality version of Nathan was buggy. I had the same issue. They have since removed it altogether.
As far as the pronunciation feature goes, you might try again. The tool that allows you to speak the pronunciation you want and have it transcribed phonetically has finally been fixed. (Due partly to my own complaints, I suspect.)
In the end, though, TTS tools only work for people for whom visual reading is hard enough to make the various frustrations worth it. I’ve been in that group for a long time. As the technology improves and the frustrations shrink, the group is growing to include more and more people. Maybe it doesn’t yet include you, though.
Sorry, the deleted comment was me - wanted to edit it not to delete :(
Interesting subject - text to speech software. On my way to work I listen to audio books and was thinking about podfics. They are not common in Pros ( I've got two on my device I just can't find them online - argh! but they are very short anyway.)
I've found some podfics in the Sherlock fandom, I haven't tried them yet.
Point is .....
After a lot of time spent listening to computers read, my mind does supply a lot of the missing expression and sometimes even character voices. If you think about it, when you read visually you are just absorbing a stream of words without any color to them, and your mind adds it. If you get used to absorbing a colorless stream of words auditorily, you can learn to do the same thing. For me it's become seamless enough that I sometimes feel as if I hear the computer talking like a certain character or otherwise adding color to its reading that it can't possibly be.
Comments 13
Accents over that formerly Anglo-Saxon quarter of England are very different from those in the rest of the country which was once under Viking (Scandinavian) rule.
Reply
It's something about the vowels, I think. Here is a recording of a couple of the other voices: Harry and Stephanie
Reply
BTW neither actor in The Professionals is from the south of England. Martin Shaw was born in Birmingham, and Lewis Collins in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, so their 'southern' accents are slightly Midlands/Northern coloured.
P.S. I live in the north of England but was born in the south so I have a southern accent myself.
Reply
From the American voices for me, Henry would be the better reader because for me Oliver reads too fast. I can't understand what he's saying. But the best for my ears and my brain is the UK voice.
Reply
Henry and Oliver (and Tanner) are actually reading at the same rate in words per minute. Some voices definitely work better at high WPMs than others, though. That interests me, as I’m not sure what the important factor is.
The speed is adjustable, so you could probably make the Oliver voice slow enough to understand if you were using the program.
ETA: Here is Oliver reading about 10% slower: Oliver at 190 WPM
Reply
I’ve tried the text to voice program on my iPad for “reading” fanfic. It’s definitely easier on the eyes, which I appreciate since I have vision issues. The program is okay, and some voices are better than others, but in the iPad program at least there were a lot of odd pronunciations and a general lack of expression.
I also found it hard to get past the fact that the voices aren’t the right voices for my characters, though. In dialogue, especially banter, I hear the characters’ voices in my head when I read well written dialogue, but I wasn’t able to do that with voice to text. Do you get used to it eventually and hear your characters’ voices?
Reply
In the beginning, I sometimes felt that Henry's delivery clashed with the mood of a scene. As I listened to him more, I think I got used to it, though. It no longer sounds cheerful to me, but just like the way he talks.
I read mostly on an iPad. Tom, the voice I linked at the end of the post, is an Apple voice. Apple's accessibility settings include an interface for correcting its voices' pronunciations, which is a good feature that Speechify lacks. (If you search Apple's Settings for "pronunciation" you should find it.) The Speechify voices are definitely more natural, though, and understand punctuation better. There are also some Speechify voices labeled "AI Enhanced" that try to adjust their delivery to the meaning of the text. I don't like those because they sometimes get it jarringly wrong, but I expect they will improve with time.
After a lot of time spent listening to computers read, my mind does supply a lot of the missing expression and sometimes even character voices. If you think about it, when you read visually ( ... )
Reply
I also got really frustrated when I spent a lot of time and hard drive space downloading the enhanced version of a voice I liked (it was called Nathan). But every time I select it - snd despite the fact it’s downloaded and selecfed - when I try to use it, the program substitutes a mechanical female voice.
Reply
Yes, the highest quality version of Nathan was buggy. I had the same issue. They have since removed it altogether.
As far as the pronunciation feature goes, you might try again. The tool that allows you to speak the pronunciation you want and have it transcribed phonetically has finally been fixed. (Due partly to my own complaints, I suspect.)
In the end, though, TTS tools only work for people for whom visual reading is hard enough to make the various frustrations worth it. I’ve been in that group for a long time. As the technology improves and the frustrations shrink, the group is growing to include more and more people. Maybe it doesn’t yet include you, though.
Reply
Sorry, the deleted comment was me - wanted to edit it not to delete :(
Interesting subject - text to speech software.
On my way to work I listen to audio books and was thinking about podfics. They are not common in Pros ( I've got two on my device I just can't find them online - argh! but they are very short anyway.)
I've found some podfics in the Sherlock fandom, I haven't tried them yet.
Point is .....
After a lot of time spent listening to computers read, my mind does
supply a lot of the missing expression and sometimes even character
voices. If you think about it, when you read visually you are just
absorbing a stream of words without any color to them, and your mind
adds it. If you get used to absorbing a colorless stream of words
auditorily, you can learn to do the same thing. For me it's become
seamless enough that I sometimes feel as if I hear the computer talking
like a certain character or otherwise adding color to its reading that
it can't possibly be.
I was so happy to read this :-)
Yes, it needed some time but now, ( ... )
Reply
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