Since going international a few weeks ago, we’ve had some requests for more text to speech (TTS) voices. In our launch, we provided eight female voices in various languages and dialects. A number of customers have inquired about male voices for those same dialects.

They’re available starting now. Just like the female voices, each male voice is identified by a character’s name. The new voices we’ve added are:

• jorge – Castilian Spanish – Male
• bernard – French – Male
• dave – US English – Male
• simon – British English – Male
• stefan – German – Male
• luca – Italian – Male
• willem – Dutch – Male
• carlos – Mexican Spanish – Male

To use one of the new voices, just add the character’s name to your text to speech command in Tropo. For example, in PHP, you can do…

<?php
answer();
say('Comment allez-vous?', array('voice' => 'bernard'));
say('ça va bien merci.', array('voice' => 'florence'));
?>

Or in Ruby, try:

answer
say "1 2 3 4 5 my name is Dave and I'm from the U S.", :voice => 'dave'
say "Hello, Dave. I'm Simon from London.", :voice => 'simon'

Want to use one of these languages in speech recognition? Our Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) platform recognizes all of the languages we can speak, regardless if if they’re said by a man or woman.

In JavaScript:

answer();
result=ask("Quel âge avez-vous?", {
  choices:"[1-3 digits]",
  recognizer:"fr-fr",
  voice:"bernard"
  } );
if (result.name=='choice') {
  say("C'est bon. Je suis " + result.value + " ans.", {voice:"bernard"})
}

The full list of voices and documentation of how to use various TTS voices is available under the say() function.

Related posts:

1. Tropo Speaks your Language – 24 in all
2. Deutsch? French? Spanish? How To Use International Text-To-Speech (TTS) in Tropo Apps
3. Tropo’s in Poland, so we’re speaking Polish
4. New Text to Speech Voices – Australian English + an Extra American English
5. Simple tips for better text to speech

Tags: international, PHP, text to speech, tts, voices

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