| Text Speaker: Adjusting Pronunciation |
Adjusting Pronunciation
There will be times when you want to alter the way Text Speaker pronounces a word. For instance, the word "record" is pronounced ree kord when it is a verb ("I will record your voice.") and reh kerd when it is a noun ("I will keep a record of this interview.").
To change the way a word is pronounced, select the word in the Text Display area and click Tools >> Pronunciation. The Pronunciation window appears.
The pronunciation of a word is defined in terms of phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of pronunciation, a single sound. For instance, the word "cut" has three phonemes, k ah t. Text Speaker includes the phonemes of the English language (and many other European languages). To see a list of phonemes available, click the Phoneme Chart button.
The phonetic alphabet shown here also includes symbols for stress (the difference between PRES ent and pres ENT), breaks between syllables of a word, and breaks between phrases and sentences.
To add a phoneme to the Pronunciation window, simply click it. You can also type the phonetic symbols directly into the Phoneme area after you are familiar with them.
After you have entered the phonemes, click Test to hear the pronunciation. You may need to adjust it, for example by substituting a different vowel or changing the emphasis (stress).
If you make the pronunciation Case Sensitive, the pronunciation you enter will only apply when exactly the same letter or letters are capitalized. For instance, you could have MB pronounced "motherboard" and mb pronounced "megabytes".
After you have entered the phonemes, click Apply to add the word to the list. You can add as many words as you like. When you are finished adding words, click Done.
If you would like to remove a word from the list (and return to the original pronunciation), select it in the list and click Remove.
If you have been editing the pronunciation of a word, and would like to have both the Word and Pronunciation areas clear so that you can add a new word, click Clear. The Clear button does not change the pronunciation of already-defined words, it simply clears the dialog so that you can start on a new one.
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