Hello my fellow jaws users:

As some of you may remember, I’ve been asking for weeks how to improve the pronunciation of jaws. Particularly, I wanted to do it for eloquence because it’s the synth the I mostly use on a daily basis, and taking into account that I’m not a native English speaker, it was totally inconvenient for me to continue to listen mispronounced words.

Now I bring you a dictionary for eloquence that solves many pronunciation issues when using American English voices. It is not remotely similar to the user’s dictionary, which I think it’s OK for some instances, but for most cases inadequate.

The master mind behind this phonemic dictionary is Amir Soleimani, who started building this dictionary many years ago for other software.

This phonemic dictionary contains more than twenty-two thousand entries, and Amir regularly introduces changes and

New words.

Here are some words in which you can easily perceive a significant difference before and after adding the dictionary, so pay close attention now, and when you have finished the process, returned up to this point and listen again!

hermaphroditus 

cyberphobia       

semitone   

kurzweil   

insincere   

and one of my favorites,

voila!

Let’s cut to the chase!

A couple of notes before the steps:

If you are using the eloquence synth, switch to another synth.

The dictionary file is attached to this E-mail, all you have to do is to download the compressed file and unzip it.

1.    Assuming you have a 64 bit machine, go to the following folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Freedom Scientific\Shared\Eloquence\6.1.Copy the file called “ELOQMAIN.DCT,” and paste it in a safe location, in other words, back it up.

2.    Copy the file that was left after unzipping, which has the same name of the file that you just put in a safe location, and paste it in the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Freedom Scientific\Shared\Eloquence\6.1. If windows asks for confirmation, go ahead and replace the existing file.

You’re all set!

Relaunch jaws, switch to eloquence, and try out the pronunciation of the words above.

In a 32 bit machine, the process should be similar except for the name of the folder program files, but I don’t own a 32 bit machine.

Notice that all we did was to replace the existing file; however, the new file already contains all the entries.

Notice that this is not the jaws user’s dictionary (.JDF file) so, it shouldn’t conflict with it, but in any case, that’s why you must make a backup of that file.

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Best,
   Leo