https://adamgradzki.com/2022-03-01T00:00:00-05:002022-03-01T00:00:00-05:002022-03-01T00:00:00-05:00Adam Gradzkitag:adamgradzki.com,2022-03-01:/pronounce-foreign-words-with-an-open-source-speech-therapist.html

<p>Open source software can assist with pronounciation of languages if you don't have someone to talk to right now.</p>

<p>Learning to pronounce words without a tutor is so much easier thanks to the open source software espeak-ng. <a href="https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/blob/master/src/espeak-ng.1.ronn#examples">Link to usage examples.</a></p> <p>I can get sound and the IPA spelling of any word easily directly from a free offline program installed on my laptop. For example, the following command gives the German pronounciation of the word "meine" with the fifth female robotic voice actor, further slowed down to a crawl so I can hear it better with the "-s 80" flag:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>$<span class="w"> </span>espeak-ng<span class="w"> </span>-v<span class="w"> </span>de+f5<span class="w"> </span>--ipa<span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&quot;meine&quot;</span><span class="w"> </span>-s<span class="w"> </span><span class="m">80</span> mˈaɪnə </code></pre></div> <p><a href="https://github.com/numediart/MBROLA-voices/blob/master/README.md">It is also possible to upgrade the speech engine by installing MBROLA voices for improved synthesis</a></p>