Changing the Text-to-Speech voice on Android - Android Software Development

Mostly an issue for Google Navigation on Droid. It is not possible to change the voice for the application only, as it uses Androids text-to-speech voice. So to change it for the app, we must change it for everything! However, 'Install voice data' is always grayed out due to it already being installed.
Is there any way to change the voice? And if so, is there a compatible database available?

Hmm, is this not possible or just completely unimportant to people?

The TTS engine (according to http://eyes-free.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/documentation/tutorial/tutorial.html) is a port of the eSpeak engine
If you really want to, you can help espeak project to improve or develop new langages.
In the document section of the espeak project you will find informations and tools which should help you...
However, changing the voice for a a generic tts engine, is not so easy (it not like recording "turn left"/"turn right"/... in a application where what should be said is much more limited)

I was confused at first. What you linked to was the documentation for an app already on the Android market. This app uses a eSpeak port. The TTS on the native Android 2.0 OS is called Pico TTS.
The voice files seem easy to find. Navigating with astro, I found system->tts contains several .bins named as languages. Wouldn't changing a voice be as easy as finding the correct way to compile the .bin and then simply replacing the file?

Celeras said:
Hmm, is this not possible or just completely unimportant to people?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since somebody is actually asking here, I guess it is important, eh?
Ive been tryin to switch to canadian french too for a while, without success, sadly...

Does anyone know how to compile espeak and the data for android?
The current data is from 2009. Since then, the data has changed a lot and a lot of languages are better pronounced.

reminator said:
Since somebody is actually asking here, I guess it is important, eh?
Ive been tryin to switch to canadian french too for a while, without success, sadly...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Canadian French is a dying sub-language, very few people speak it as an only language with the majority of younger people prefer learning English.

'Canadian French is a dying sub-language, very few people speak it as an only language with the majority of younger people prefer learning English.'
I'm sorry Nanan00, but I think you are sadly mistaken. In Canada, Canadian French is not a 'dying sub-language', it is spoken by millions of Canadians, including Anglophones (such as myself). And the 'only language', thing, by which I assume you mean the sole language spoken by an individual, was never in question. BTW, I am a 'young person' as well, and i prefer to speak BOTH og my country's offical languages.
P.S. I'm glad that Texans can make obdurate decisions and conclusions about a foriegn country's national languages. Its shows how worldly you are becoming down there. It also means that I can do that same and state that proper English in America is a dyning sub language, next to all the wonderful tripe passing for English down there. GBA!

jbag2009 said:
'Canadian French is a dying sub-language, very few people speak it as an only language with the majority of younger people prefer learning English.'
I'm sorry Nanan00, but I think you are sadly mistaken. In Canada, Canadian French is not a 'dying sub-language', it is spoken by millions of Canadians, including Anglophones (such as myself). And the 'only language', thing, by which I assume you mean the sole language spoken by an individual, was never in question. BTW, I am a 'young person' as well, and i prefer to speak BOTH og my country's offical languages.
P.S. I'm glad that Texans can make obdurate decisions and conclusions about a foriegn country's national languages. Its shows how worldly you are becoming down there. It also means that I can do that same and state that proper English in America is a dyning sub language, next to all the wonderful tripe passing for English down there. GBA!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Canadian French isn't dying, just like Flemish (the variant of Dutch spoken in Belgium) isn't dying. In Belgium, we now haven't got a government for 209 days because in earlier days, the French speaking Belgians didn't want to accept the Flemish as an official language. Flemish was spoken by a majority of people, but the rich people all spoke French. Politicians are now still fighting for the rights of the Dutch speaking. If Brussels (the bilingual capital city) didn't exist, Belgium would long be divided in Wallonia and Flanders. But since Brussels is the only child of the marriage, it is a tough divorce.
Now on topic. The Dutch eSpeak data is far better now than in 2009. So I really need an update. I don't know that much about other languages.

all i know is that i use svox, with the female voice from great britain (yes, it costs 2 bucks or something, but worth it, imho)
it comes through google navigation, because i have selected svox as my primary speech engine. pico just does not sound as good. i did not have to select 'use my settings globally', or whatever it says in there, for svox to be employed in google navigation.
google translate, however, requres the espeak engine. if you turn on the 'use my settings globally' option with svox, and try and use google translate text to speech (i've had to use this occasionally in a hospital setting for english to spanish), then it does not work at all.
hope that helps

timothydonohue said:
all i know is that i use svox, with the female voice from great britain (yes, it costs 2 bucks or something, but worth it, imho)
it comes through google navigation, because i have selected svox as my primary speech engine. pico just does not sound as good. i did not have to select 'use my settings globally', or whatever it says in there, for svox to be employed in google navigation.
google translate, however, requres the espeak engine. if you turn on the 'use my settings globally' option with svox, and try and use google translate text to speech (i've had to use this occasionally in a hospital setting for english to spanish), then it does not work at all.
hope that helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't want to rely on proprietary software. And I find it weird, Jonathan works a lot to get the data for all languages OK, and than the data doesn't get ported.

I downloaded Loquendo, an app from the market. It's an alternate voice to text engine for Android and it sounds great. It was $5.99 when I bought it. It's waaay more natural sounding than the robotic stock Pico TTS. You can read more about it here and hear samples of the voice too (only the girl voice is available for android, not the guy voices)
http://tinyurl.com/23zumb5
makes using navigation so much nicer.

"Canadian French is a dying sub-language, very few people speak it as an only language with the majority of younger people prefer learning English."
This is a sad statement, your information is wrong, you don't relay know what 's going on in Canada east provinces, Québec is known as a French speaking province, We have strong french network, School, Collège, university, singning artist in French, Tv, Radio, Computeur, Smart phone with French Canadian speaking software, New Brunswick, Ontario are bilingual province, We find french network in all provinces in Canada, those software like Nuance Dragon, Svox TTS, are software not only French Européen language, also, French Canadian speaking+ reconation languages.
Reminator...
"Since somebody is actually asking here, I guess it is important, eh?
I've been trying to switch to Canadian French too for a while, without success, sadly..."
I want to share my expérience, I did installed google maps/mobile, on N1, before I download SVOX TTS , and set it up to french In google apps, I was glad that the voice speaking was in french (international accent) also for trapster apps + others, but Text To Speach (Pico tts) read up with english pronunciation syllable (bringing confusions), what ever the message/ world was writhing in english or in french .
But the native pico tts or e Speaking tts do not recognize most of the command.
Almost all the (writing/reading) down-loadable application are available in French, as well I have choice of the dictionary, French Canadian or French from France.
--
Jipy !

Settle down everyone. Why are we talking about languages?
SVOX also has their own range that is natural speaking, I'm looking for a free one and it seems they have one will report back.

how do you change the pitch of the voice? i saw that screen once but can't find it anymore.

scirio said:
I downloaded Loquendo, an app from the market. It's an alternate voice to text engine for Android and it sounds great. It was $5.99 when I bought it. It's waaay more natural sounding than the robotic stock Pico TTS. You can read more about it here and hear samples of the voice too (only the girl voice is available for android, not the guy voices)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already had this on my phone. So I loaded it on my KF and the demo works like it does on my phone. But I am unable to get it to be used for anything else.
Not sure if there is a hack that can be used to change the default setting to use it.

I use ivona voice for my tts and right now it's in "beta". ( been in beta for years)
the voice I use is british amy on my at&t atrix. that's something you could always try.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

timothydonohue said:
all i know is that i use svox, with the female voice from great britain (yes, it costs 2 bucks or something, but worth it, imho)
it comes through google navigation, because i have selected svox as my primary speech engine. pico just does not sound as good. i did not have to select 'use my settings globally', or whatever it says in there, for svox to be employed in google navigation.
google translate, however, requres the espeak engine. if you turn on the 'use my settings globally' option with svox, and try and use google translate text to speech (i've had to use this occasionally in a hospital setting for english to spanish), then it does not work at all.
hope that helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh, Victoria! She's great. The most pleasant, natural, and accurate imo. Only problem is, how do we get her in Google Translate? Is there really no way?

Related

Can someone recommend an English <-> German translator?

I've looked all over then net, but there's too many options.
I'm traveling to Germany for work and would like some form of translator to help me get around. A general travel tool with some phrases would be great.
Does anyone have a recommendation?
I use PocketDict, by Tj Mobile.
I has a number of languages. I suspect it was cheap though is why I got it. Never compared it to others.
http://www.tj-mobile.net/pdPPCPocketDict.htm
You may also want to check out W0lf's Translator.
for what i need w0lfs works good
or if you have web use the googles language module..
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
has many languages....
S
drsm0ke said:
or if you have web use the googles language module..
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
has many languages....
S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if i remember right, w0lfs uses google languages to translate

Odd problem with WiFi hotspots

I'm currently in China and I'm having a bit of a problem with WiFi hotspots and was wondering if anyone can help.
Some of the hot spots names are in Chinese characters... which this phone can't display. So instead of giving me junk data, but still letting me choose the spot like my computer, it doesn't even try and show the network.
Anyone have any thoughts on a way to get around it?
Hey nsvrana,
So you're saying that the Mytouch Slide doesn't display Chinese characters at all? Wow. Can you input or write Chinese characters?
I've seen Chinese input on the Nexus One and on the HTC Desire
So I assumed it was easily available across all Android handsets. I just ordered the MTS, and I will definitely need to write Chinese regularly. If this phone isn't capable of that, I may have to cancel my order. Other than that, it seemed like the perfect phone for what I needed...
Depends on where you got your Slide. During my time with Nokia, phones of the same model, but going to different regions around the world, will get different regional software. Here in the USA, only English and Spanish were loaded. You would have to get a regional set of software installed.
Being in China, I imagine there are many specialized shops that are able to do this, provided the Slide is available in China... If you are a T-Mobile customer traveling in China, I'd start by calling them, they may be able to send you an OTA update for the regional languages.
Edit: Also, try searching the Market for language packs. I have no idea if this is even possible, but worth a shot. You could also try manually adding a hotspot.
Yeah, I had that same experience with Nokia phones as well. They're very stingy with their language packs, even though it isn't hard at all to install them they don't make them readily available through official channels. But Nokia phones are extremely popular throughout Asia, so it's not too hard to find shops (even here in the US) that can install language packs. Unfortunately, I'm new to Android, and Android is also pretty new to Asia and China, so I'm not sure how easy it is to install language packs.
I can write in characters thanks to the Google keyboard, and I am able to receive text messages with Chinese characters in them, but whenever a wifi hotspot has characters in its name, the phone refuses to show the hotspot. This is made even more annoying by its inability to show ad-hoc networks. I don't want to have to carry a router everywhere I go
*whew*
That's a relief to hear that the Slide can input Chinese characters, I mainly need it for texting and emails. All you had to do was just install the Google pinyin input from the Market? My Slide is coming in a few days, and I'm trying to do as my research to make the transition from my Nokia as smooth as possible, haha.
So the Wifi hotspot name display is the only time the characters don't come through? Maybe you can try contacting HTC directly about this. Since they're based in Taiwan, so many people use their phones in Asia, I'm sure this wouldn't be the first time they've had this problem.

please help i cant switch my xoom to english!!!

hey guys
i have a big problem. i am living (temporarily) in germany and i cant speak german. since i bought a samsung galaxy s and i know from friends that all android devices you can switch language , i didnt worry a lot and i went to pay 650 euros for a new xoom 3g.
when i got home big surprise!! i cant switch to english! it has only german language.
if you are wondering if i know where the menu is, yes i do....
what to do ? if you guys need more details i can even provide print screen...
mospantagruel said:
hey guys
i have a big problem. i am living (temporarily) in germany and i cant speak german. since i bought a samsung galaxy s and i know from friends that all android devices you can switch language , i didnt worry a lot and i went to pay 650 euros for a new xoom 3g.
when i got home big surprise!! i cant switch to english! it has only german language.
if you are wondering if i know where the menu is, yes i do....
what to do ? if you guys need more details i can even provide print screen...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to the settings ("Einstellungen"). Then select Language & input (German: "Sprache ...") and then "Sprache auswahlen"
ok so i was sure you wouldnt understand me.
that is why i attached 2 pictures.
i am already in that menu and there is no language other than german to select
please take a look
mospantagruel said:
ok so i was sure you wouldnt understand me.
that is why i attached 2 pictures.
i am already in that menu and there is no language other than german to select
please take a look
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you're screwed. Bring it back. It only has German. No possibility to switch to another locale, no matter how hard we try to understand you.
i understand that this could be a solution yes.
but i was thinking maybe somebody knows if i upgrade to 3.1 with usb host cable....maybe that would work?
and also since that 3.1 rom image is taken directly from google, shouldn't void my warranty right?
i am waiting couple more hours for more opinions maybe someone here can help me!!
then i take it back to the store
i can tell you this thing has ruined my user experience ...a lot!
mospantagruel said:
i am waiting couple more hours for more opinions maybe someone here can help me!!
then i take it back to the store
i can tell you this thing has ruined my user experience ...a lot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's to early to tell if the 3G Verizon 3.1 image might work on a German 3G Xoom. If I were you I would trade it for the Galaxy Tab 10.1v. They should be available in Germany by now. It's a perfect Honeycomb tablet and will support English. (You need to double check this of course in the store)
Good luck, take it easy
thanks appelflap!
i have an update for those who are intrested in this... just called motorola germany, they speak english, and i asked them if this is a policy of motorola or it will be available in the future.
motorola support told me "no no no, no way its our policy" and by next official update i will definately get english. they said its just because its the initial release of the honeycomb thats why... i asked them when the upgrade and they said they dont know and they prefer not to speculate.
oh well... should i believe them? i still have 14 days by german law and also according to the store policy to take it back so i figure i just wait a little bit...
galaxy tab 10.1 might have been a very good option ...if it had hdmi and microsd, which is important for me...
You can try to install a free app called MoreLocale2 from Android market.
https://market.android.com/details?id=jp.co.c_lis.ccl.morelocale&feature=search_result
This app contain lots of language packs.
Bigmille that was genious!!!! thank you so much!
oh boy...
Bigmille said:
You can try to install a free app called MoreLocale2 from Android market.
https://market.android.com/details?id=jp.co.c_lis.ccl.morelocale&feature=search_result
This app contain lots of language packs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only works if they have built in the locale translations in the Honeycomb system. Could be working for english because Honeycomb is original in English. Don't see why they have hide the English locale though. BTW it will not work for the keyboard.
With such a switch you ask apps to look for translations. Apps need to provide the translations though.
everything is in english now. keyboard also, skype, google maps, android market, everything in english.
i selected us english in the MoreLocale2 app, even though in the settings/ language options i still cant chose other than german, which is so weird....
i will post a pic later, now i am playing with my new toy
thanks so much for help. if anyone else has the same problem i am glad i opened this thread...
mospantagruel said:
everything is in english now. keyboard also, skype, google maps, android market, everything in english.
i selected us english in the MoreLocale2 app, even though in the settings/ language options i still cant chose other than german, which is so weird....
i will post a pic later, now i am playing with my new toy
thanks so much for help. if anyone else has the same problem i am glad i opened this thread...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's great. Congratulations. Now if this only could work with dutch
Very strange they decided to hide this locale option on the German Xoom.
Well this is great! It also works with the Galaxy Tab 10.1v for Dutch. The translations aren't finished yet but it's working, sort of. Now I won't have to wait till they release the translations here in the Netherlands.
Ha! Now I don't have to return the Tab and can I sell the Xoom to my neighbor
Thank you!

[Q] Language for google voice typing

Is somebody found a place where we can download language update or best, new language. Specially french they only have one and some variation would be appreciated.
Search in play store for tts(text to speech) apps,you can found apps which provide voices such as espeak, etc...
x_max_best said:
Search in play store for tts(text to speech) apps,you can found apps which provide voices such as espeak, etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but I'm not in search for a TTS but more a STT. In fact, in jellybean, you already have one. "google voice typing" and in the setting you have different language. I dont want to install an another application, I'd just like to find other language or more french version to ass to it like it is for english: UK, US etc.....

Please help with translations

Hello guys,
I need your help with translations for the my new app. Will be great to have Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese translations.
About the app: it's very simple "talking watch" app, operated by the voice command. For example, you are jogging in the frosty morning, the phone is in your pocket, and you are listening music on headset. So, if you wanna know what time is it, just press a headset button and ask "What time is it", thats all...
The link to the translations spreadsheet: http://goo.gl/Dk9agG
(update): I forgot to enable spreadsheet editing, sorry. Now it fixed
Thanks a lot!
P.S. I know (and actually using) Microsoft Multilingual App Toolkit plugin to Visual Studio but the quality of the machine translation by Bing... hmm... tried for Russian language, results are... very strange :laugh:
P.P.S. I can add translators as a beta-testers - just PM me your LiveID email. The app will be available (for beta-testers) at http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=db62a73b-ea2e-40cd-9be8-e32d6582a327
[UPDATE] Guys, I don't have plans to localize app for the languages differ than above: there is no reason for that. The purpose of the app is simple: you asking your handset about time on your own native language, and phone tell you what time is it now. If your language has no support of TTS/STT (text-to-speech & speech-to-text i.e. voice commands), there is no reason to localize UI (theoretically, I can build this app UI-less).
[UPDATE 2] C'mon, guys; I saw a lot of people from France, Italia, Spain on xda... It will take just a 5 minutes, not longer - I promise! Please, help!
sensboston said:
Hello guys,
I need your help with translations for the my new app. Will be great to have German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Chinese and Japanese translations.
About the app: it's very simple "talking watch" app, operated by the voice command. For example, you are jogging in the frosty morning, the phone is in your pocket, and you are listening music on headset. So, if you wanna know what time is it, just press a headset button and ask "What time is it", thats all...
The link to the translations spreadsheet: http://goo.gl/9xphVr
Thanks a lot!
P.S. I know (and actually using) Microsoft Multilingual App Toolkit plugin to Visual Studio but the quality of the machine translation by Bing... hmm... tried for Russian language, results are... very strange :laugh:
P.P.S. I can add translators as a beta-testers - just PM me your LiveID email.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can help you with Persian (Farsi) translation . I will send you my Live ID if you want.
ngame, I'm really appreciate your help but AFAIK there is no Farsi TTS/STT services for WP8 (I'm using built-in functionality only). BTW, if you want to test it on English/Russian, you may join beta-testing, just PM me your liveid (I'll add you as a beta-tester).
sensboston said:
ngame, I'm really appreciate your help but AFAIK there is no Farsi TTS/STT services for WP8 (I'm using built-in functionality only). BTW, if you want to test it on English/Russian, you may join beta-testing, just PM me your liveid (I'll add you as a beta-tester).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought you have files for each language to say the time .
Yes WP TTS System can't read Persian .
You can add Unsupported Languages by downloading a Package file .
For example if some one wants to add unsupported language first download a pack of files to read the clock in that language but they have to use English Speech ! a little mistake .
Turkish translation by my pdaimatejam
Waiting for testing
thank you very much :good:
Thanks everybody for translation, I'll publish updated version this evening (EST).
pdaimatejam, do you have Turkish language for the speech services installed? AFAIK, there is no Turkish STT/TTS support in the phone. What kind of language you are using for the speech (voice commands etc)? And I need your LiveID email, to add you as a beta-tester.
sensboston said:
Thanks everybody for translation, I'll publish updated version this evening (EST).
pdaimatejam, do you have Turkish language for the speech services installed? AFAIK, there is no Turkish STT/TTS support in the phone. What kind of language you are using for the speech (voice commands etc)? And I need your LiveID email, to add you as a beta-tester.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[email protected]
speech english use set up stt/tts okay
I've submitted app to the beta store, it will be available for all beta-tester very soon by link (open on your phone) http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=db62a73b-ea2e-40cd-9be8-e32d6582a327
Please, note: "Auto exit" and "Turn screen off" settings works if app running from the voice command ONLY (otherwise you can't adjust the settings ).
To all translators: I've added one more sentense (simple app description for the store), could you please add translation? Thanks!
Chinese translation by Neo_Vincent
this is my liveID [email protected]
thank you for the beta versions
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate! Will add you as a beta-tester soon (need to complete Chinese translation first).
Could you please tell me, how to split 现在几点 (What time is it) sentense to the 2 parts? It's because of MS voice commands API limitation, I need to define prefix (for English, it's "what time" and command ("is it"). Could you do the same with Chinese hieroglyphs? By the way, how voice commands works on Chinese and other ideographic languages?
And (just to prove), "current time" on Chinese is "当前时间", right?
"what time" is “几点” and "is it" can be considered as "现在", and i think the chinese voice commands works fine on wp8, it is better than google now.
for Q2, yes "current time" is 当前时间
Translation in French by me.
[email protected] for testing
Great, thanks a lot sir! Will add your translation and LiveID for beta-testing this night (Eastern time, US).
Beta version will be available very soon after publishing; use link in the first post on your phone.
sensboston said:
Great, thanks a lot sir! Will add your translation and LiveID for beta-testing this night (Eastern time, US).
Beta version will be available very soon after publishing; use link in the first post on your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, thanks
I did Finnish translation for you. I use English system, so I cant remeber if there is some standard way of saying “rate and review" for example, however the language is correct and Im sure its fine like that.
You can add me to the beta also, I will check it out if I have time; joros at outlook dot com.
Good Luck!
i have tested the app, some translations are not exact, so i have changed some in google doc.
de plus, it works well,i love the idea.
OK, guys, app with most recent changes submitted to the store and will be available very soon. Just a reminder: to install app, you should open this link http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=db62a73b-ea2e-40cd-9be8-e32d6582a327 or (short version) http://bit.ly/1inLeyX from your phone.
I'm going to publish the app for the general public tomorrow; please report if you have a critical issues/corrections/suggestions only (other translations and corrections will be added to the new version).
Than app will be published, I'll open an app topic at "Windows Phone 8 Apps and Games" forum but will keep this beta published ('cause "Turn screen off" option will be paid), so translators/beta-testers will have a "commercial" version of the app.
Thanks everybody for the great work!
It's outrageously and rediculous: I just found (I'm committing the app right now to the Store) - some stupid idiot deleted some translation from the public document But this dumbhead has no idea that Google docs has a revision history
sensboston said:
It's outrageously and rediculous: I just found (I'm committing the app right now to the Store) - some stupid idiot deleted some translation from the public document But this dumbhead has no idea that Google docs has a revision history
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nice app , Looks real good :good:
(found it instore 1.29 euro)
Good news: I've got app published in less than hour (check my other thread)
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/what-time/1e51d223-2d05-4c25-907f-35e40db416a5
P.S. I do have one more request to translators/beta-testers: if it's not very difficult to you, could you please promote the app at yours national Windows Phone forums? Thanks a lot for everything!

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