On March 24, 2018 6:26:18 PM UTC, Kevin Wisher <[email protected]> wrote: >I don't care for the espeak and English is my native language. I listen >to >podcasts at 1.7x speed and that makes it even more difficult to >understand. > >On Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 2:23 PM SundaraRaman R ><[email protected]> >wrote: > >> >> >> On Sat 24 Mar, 2018, 7:17 PM Nigel Verity, <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> It's always annoying when somebody mispronounces your name but I >think >>> the same issue probably exists for some of the episode titles, >especially >>> when acronyms or application/trade names are included. >>> >>> For first-language English speakers it's probably not so much of a >>> problem but HPR has plenty of listeners for whom English is a 2nd >language, >>> so deciphering eSpeak might sometimes not be so easy. Would it be >such a >>> big deal to either request hosts to make their own introductions or, >>> failing that, find a volunteer with a good speaking voice to >pre-record >>> episode introductions? Since slots are booked in advance it should >be >>> possible for the "announcer" to record them in batches, thereby >reducing >>> the burden. >>> >>> Beeza >>> ------------------------------ >>> >> >> We could take this discussion to a new thread, but yes, the eSpeak >voice >> in general is something I've wanted to bring up for some time now. As >a >> second language English speaker, I do find it hard to decipher most >of the >> time. After a few initial weeks of attempting to understand it, I've >taken >> to skipping through it (and missing the summaries) instead. It's not >> entirely unintelligible, but it's like listening to an out of >frequency AM >> radio station and trying to make sense of it. >> >> I'm not that familiar with eSpeak, but perhaps one of the other >voices >> could be worth a try? If I understand this page >> http://espeak.sourceforge.net/commands.html (-v voice) correctly, >there >> are 7 male voices and 4 female voices included with eSpeak. If one of >those >> works out, it might be an easier switch to implement than moving to a >human >> voice. (lf this is worth considering, we can take this discussion - >about >> the eSpeak voice in general - to a separate thread so as not to >sidetrack >> this one.) >> >> NB: just as a frivolous remark, I find it a bit funny that my chosen >> moniker (Aaressaar) has the opposite problem - someone mentioned on a >> Community News episode that they couldn't initially figure out how to >> pronounce it, whereas eSpeak seems to have gotten it immediately! >> >> -- >> Cheers, >> Aaressaar >> >>> _______________________________________________ >> Hpr mailing list >> [email protected] >> >http://hackerpublicradio.org/mailman/listinfo/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org >>
I'm not a fan of this at all actually. Screwing up pronunciation on the names of people and being corrected, I feel is a right of passage for all users. Just my two pence. --cobra2 _______________________________________________ Hpr mailing list [email protected] http://hackerpublicradio.org/mailman/listinfo/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org
