text to speech download

text to speech download

The Importance of Text to Speech Download

1. Introduction

This essay on download text to speech importance gives an insight into text to speech technology and in what ways it is beneficial. It also talks about the kind of people who could use this technology. In today’s hurry burry world we find that many a times we want things to get done faster and quicker. But sometimes our health does not permit to do so. Take for example sight challenged or those who are too weak to read but have to cover a vast syllabus. For them this text to speech download can be a boon. Imagine at the end of the day when tired and fatigued they would have to strain their eyes reading. Instead they could download the text on the PC and listen to it. This would give them the much needed rest and also help to understand and retain the information. Again there are those with learning disabilities. They may be slow in reading or may not comprehend what they read. They could benefit by multi sensory learning using the text to speech software. High school and college students can benefit by downloading text while doing net research for projects. They could listen to the information and type or note down relevant points, saving time and getting the job done faster. In the modern day classroom, teachers can use text to speech to prepare notes or tutorials on various lessons and topics for the students. This can be an effective way of teaching and can be a boon to those teachers who have a good command over the language but are weak in handwriting. The students in turn can benefit from notes which are legible and easy to understand. In today’s globalized world, English is the most widely used language. Those wanting to learn or improve their English, can get help by listening to downloaded English text or even by reading and listening at the same time. Text to speech can be beneficial to a wide range of people, from children to senior citizens. They can use it to get information on a wide range of topics varying from learning a new language to education, health, entertainment and many more. In a nutshell, text to speech technology can make life easier by providing a convenient alternative to reading.

2. Benefits of Text to Speech Download

Using TTS can help to reduce the time it takes to study and the amount of material that needs to be printed. ‘Ear reading’ can significantly increase the capacity to learn, as some people take in information better via auditory means. By converting the text displayed on a webpage to speech, TTS assists those with cognitive difficulties, learning disabilities such as dyslexia, mild visual impairments, or other disabilities become independent learners. This can be a life-changing tool for these individuals, who up until now have had to rely on various forms of human readers. TTS can also provide a service for people learning a new language by ‘reading’ a second language so that it’s spoken with the correct pronunciation.

Text to speech systems were first developed to aid the visually impaired by offering a computer-generated spoken voice that would ‘read’ text to the user. This technology has now advanced to the point where it can easily be used by students and professionals alike to help with learning and multitasking between reading and another activity.

3. How to Choose the Best Text to Speech Software

If you only require TTS as a temporary solution or are simply looking to test out the capabilities of the software, then the best option would be to use online services or freeware. A good number of online TTS services will allow you to copy/paste text or upload a document and immediately have it converted to speech. Some will even provide a TTS widget for your website. For the most part, these services are adequate and will offer a range of languages and/or accents.

Adopting a text to speech software is obviously a wise move for your personal productivity, professional projects or business presentation. However, with so many TTS products on the market, which one should you choose? There are a variety of products ranging from freeware and online services to big budget commercial offerings. When it comes down to choosing, it all depends on what you will be using the software for.

4. Steps to Download and Install Text to Speech Software

Therefore, the first thing that you will need to do is to connect to the internet and find the site of the synthesizer you wish to download. Actually finding a site that has a synthesizer might be the hardest part of these steps. For the sake of providing directions, we will say you wanted to download the Mary 3.5.4 Speech Synthesizer from TCTS Lab The Very Nerve of the Class of Oral Communication. When you arrive at the site, read through any of the provided documentation. Many times, synthesizer sites will have installation instructions or a FAQ that can answer questions regarding the installation process. After knowing where the synthesizer is, you will need to find out exactly where it is on the site. Many sites will have multiple downloads and versions of the synthesizer. Usually, the more recent the version, the better the quality of the voice and/or the synthesizer as a whole. Find which version of the synthesizer you want and locate the download link for the appropriate file.

5. Conclusion

This paper has presented the importance of text to speech over the past decade till now. It has discussed the four main areas where the research has been done. It has also shown light over the different languages and the research till date to improve TTS conversion for those languages. The paper has also compared the synthesis modalities for TTS and the best areas where it is being utilized. But this essay is just a small dip into the ocean of TTS research, there is still a lot which can be done and still a lot left to accomplish. With growing technology TTS is still an evolving application and still has unturned stones to give more natural and more intelligible output. In areas where a blind person is using TTS to understand something, the system still lacks at some places and does not provide a proper understanding of the context, so more work can be done especially keeping these kinds of scenarios in mind. Also in the education field the TTS output can be used to teach a disabled child and to make him understand things and essay a very easy task. With the on growing speech enabled machines, the scope of TTS is taking a new turn. Today we have machines which can understand human speech, and process it to give a proper output, TTS can be used alongside these machines as an output modality, so it will ensure more intelligent TTS systems. A comparison of different languages can also be done, especially countries like China and Japan are mastering in the field of robotics. TTS can prove to be a useful output modality for those robots. Also TTS can be made to learn dialects and special accents of different languages, to give a proper output for people of different regions. The future can also see a TTS system working alongside a translation system giving a proper output of what it has translated. Today TTS has come of age, and recent research proves that to be true!