Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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I am super slow at reading and so I'm looking for a natural-sounding Text-To-Speech app recommendation. I can't understand electronic voices unless the intonation is very close to natural. (self.Blind)
submitted by PositiveEvening9993
I can't read fast enough and can't focus on it. It's a toss up as to why (could be ADHD or it could be Central Auditory Processing Disorder or this problem I have with my eyes being misaligned that I never got around to addressing). Anyway, I need to come up with a way to adapt.
My school's disability center put the books into a readable electronic file for me. Ok, great. My hearing tests as normal (CAPD is in at the level of the brain rather than the ear canal or cochlea), so it should work. But it's a nightmare. I can't perceive the phonemes well and I struggle to process the words in short term memory. I think it's because it's a very unnatural, robotic voice. If the intonation were more natural, I think I could actually use it!
I really appreciate any recommendation you can give!!!
P.S. Are there any apps or devices that scan real-world text so it can be read. Could I go from a physical paper to a pdf to speech?
My school's disability center put the books into a readable electronic file for me. Ok, great. My hearing tests as normal (CAPD is in at the level of the brain rather than the ear canal or cochlea), so it should work. But it's a nightmare. I can't perceive the phonemes well and I struggle to process the words in short term memory. I think it's because it's a very unnatural, robotic voice. If the intonation were more natural, I think I could actually use it!
I really appreciate any recommendation you can give!!!
P.S. Are there any apps or devices that scan real-world text so it can be read. Could I go from a physical paper to a pdf to speech?
facilelavage 2 points 2y ago
Android and Windows provide TTS voices which sound like a person talking on AM radio or a landline phone. These are much better voices than they provided just a few years ago. MS David English US seems to be the most widely used. You just choose a voice and set it as the system default voice. For reading apps, on Windows, Android and iOS theres Capti which is designed for dyslexia/ADHD and which also sells its own voices but can be used with a default voice. On Android theres also Evie which is similar to Capti.
fawazar94 2 points 2y ago
first you can try to listen to vocalizer voices and acapela voices, or any other tts out there, in their website. then if you liked any of their voices, you can look for app that supports that voice, such as voice dream reader for iOS or anything else similar to it.
retrolental_morose 3 points 2y ago
Voice Dream is very good on iOS, the extra voices are cheap and there are samples in the app. Also the Siri voices are very natural-sounding and the speak screen feature of the iPhone means you can use them to read in safari or in a number of other apps. Alexa can read content on Kindle. On Windows, neospeech had voices available, I used to like Bridget and Julie who were very easy-on-the-ear females. It’s all about comfort: I grew up with a robotic voice so I’m happy with that – I don’t want naturalness, I want the speed and precision.I don’t think we’ll ever reach Human parity, not until computers understand what they’re reading. But smooth-sounding text processing is getting better all the time.
astrolurus 1 points 2y ago
Thirding Voice Dream Reader. They also have an OCR app (voice dream scanned) but I think they’re adding basic ocr into the reader app. Voice dream reader is great because it can be programmed to follow and highlight the text etc as it’s reading.
PositiveEvening9993 [OP] 1 points 2y ago
There are websites housing voices separate from apps? What would you recommend I search for? Thank you!!!
dankswed 2 points 2y ago
I'm not sure, but these sound like such helpful apps. It's gotta be possible soon. We can use Google Lens to translate, so the text CAN be read.
[deleted] 1 points 2y ago
[removed]
TechnicalPragmatist 1 points 2y ago
Try voice dream reader that’s the best voices out there. I would say alex is fairly human as well. Unfortunately those are the best options right now for natural voices, for now.
gnl221 1 points 2y ago
If you have an iPhone make sure to get the enhanced voices. The regular voiceover voices are pretty good but the enhanced version is even better.
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