Longer breaks between sentences in Text-to-Speech

[batmura]

Hello,

I'm an English teacher teaching listening to beginner level students at university and I'd appreciate any help / advice from those of you familiar with using Text-to-Speech. I have two questions:

1) I need to type short sentences like "Hello, I am David Smith." and "I am a doctor." followed by sentences like "I am 36" and "I am married." The problem is no matter how slow I have the text read I find the breaks between sentences is too short. Is there any way to extend those breaks rather than everything being read out in huge chunks? I've tried spacing, or several full stops or even hyphens, but I'm not sure it's made any difference.

If anyone knows what I can do about this, please help.

2) I've observed that Samantha and Alex to be the only voices that my students can understand and do not find robotic. I don't think the other voices are any good. Does anyone agree with me on this one and is there a way to find more "natural" voices? If so, how do I get them? I'm a new Mac user, so please explain it in the simplest way if possible.


I have MacBook Air and use Yosemite 10.10.5 in case it helps.

Thanks a lot, everyone!

 

[jbarley]

Hello,

I'm an English teacher teaching listening to beginner level students at university and I'd appreciate any help / advice from those of you familiar with using Text-to-Speech. I have two questions:

1) I need to type short sentences like "Hello, I am David Smith." and "I am a doctor." followed by sentences like "I am 36" and "I am married." The problem is no matter how slow I have the text read I find the breaks between sentences is too short. Is there any way to extend those breaks rather than everything being read out in huge chunks? I've tried spacing, or several full stops or even hyphens, but I'm not sure it's made any difference.

If anyone knows what I can do about this, please help.

2) I've observed that Samantha and Alex to be the only voices that my students can understand and do not find robotic. I don't think the other voices are any good. Does anyone agree with me on this one and is there a way to find more "natural" voices? If so, how do I get them? I'm a new Mac user, so please explain it in the simplest way if possible.


I have MacBook Air and use Yosemite 10.10.5 in case it helps.

Thanks a lot, everyone!

I've used Cepstral William for years now, my absolute favorite.
Check out the demos and try William with the rate set to "fast"

http://www.cepstral.com/en/demos

 

[batmura]

I've used Cepstral William for years now, my absolute favorite.
Check out the demos and try William with the rate set to "fast"

http://www.cepstral.com/en/demos

Do I have to download another software to use this voice or can I simply use it on my Mac? If so, how would I add it to the list of voices? Also, any help about my first question?

Thanks a lot!

 

[jbarley]

Do I have to download another software to use this voice or can I simply use it on my Mac? If so, how would I add it to the list of voices? Also, any help about my first question?

Thanks a lot!

Cepstral voices come as an installation package which adds the voices to the standard Apple voice list and run just as any other voice you might choose.
As to your first question, if you ran the demo I linked to did you not find the breaks between sentences acceptable?

 

[batmura]

Cepstral voices come as an installation package which adds the voices to the standard Apple voice list and run just as any other voice you might choose.
As to your first question, if you ran the demo I linked to did you not find the breaks between sentences acceptable?

I actually need to be able to change the length of the breaks rather than a standard length. I want the pause to differ depending on the level of my students. Is there such an option?