Hi,

Dates is a different matter.

Tom is a US synth, so it is going to read dates in US style. For example, 11/09 is the 11th of September in the UK, but would be read by Tom as the 9th of November.

Note: it is only the US that have dates upside down. 😊

All the best

Steve

--
Computer Room Services
77 Exeter Close
Stevenage
Hertfordshire
SG1 4PW
T: +44(0)1438-742286
M: +44(0)7956-334938
F: +44(0)1438-759589
E: steve@comproom.co.uk
W:
https://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.
comproom.co.uk%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7Ce2bd1118fca04f71a72908d85bb28e
bd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637360169736355722&amp
;sdata=vPfN2whFxIeYg4Vc%2FldKA3PlpFjyFT4a7gg65LqmS3M%3D&reserved=0

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of John Covici
Sent: 16 September 2020 20:15
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

And you should see what Tom does with dates! Its awful and there is no dictionary entry that would solve it.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2020 12:56:29 -0400,
Richard Turner wrote:

[1 <text/plain; us-ascii (quoted-printable)>] All I can say now is
that the Tom voice does not say good.
I loaded Nathan to check, and yes, Nathan says good.
If entering gd in the dictionary and then g d with a space between them in the replacement doesn't work, then it is the Nathan voice being stubborn and not honoring the Jaws setting.



Richard
"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must
pass himself," and we forget that only grace can break the cycle of
ancient hatreds among peoples. (It is notable that while I have
regretted not granting grace to others, I've never once regretted
extending it.)" - Edward Herbert

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Kevin
Minor
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 9:43 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

Hi.

I'm using the Nathan Compact voice.

Oh well, it is what it is, but it's annoying.

Kevin and Jilly

From: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
<main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>> On Behalf Of Richard
Turner
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 12:15 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
Subject: Re: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

I'm taking back everything I said on this topic.
Kevin, my Vocalizer Tom Enhanced speaks your example perfectly as g d not good.

Which voice are you using exactly?

And, I have actually never heard Grahams mail for gmail.



Richard
"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must
pass himself," and we forget that only grace can break the cycle of
ancient hatreds among peoples. (It is notable that while I have
regretted not granting grace to others, I've never once regretted
extending it.)" - Edward Herbert

From: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
<main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>> On Behalf Of Kevin
Minor
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 8:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
Subject: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

Hi.

I'm encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It's substituting what it thinks something should be, and it's wrong. Let me illustrate.

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it's the good 77, and that's not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn't work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I'm back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer's speech, but not with all the so-called "helpful" abbreviation conversions.

Thanks in advance.

Kevin and Jilly






[2 <text/html; us-ascii (quoted-printable)>]

--
Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is:
How do
you spend it?

John Covici wb2una
covici@ccs.covici.com

Does anyone have experiences with changing JAWS voices or voice profile according to your mood? For example, reading in the evening it might be nicer to have an evening voice profile with softer tones and slower speed. I imagine the same could apply between switching things up to read a poem versus a work email. Perhaps it also requires having a custom Speech and Sound Scheme for each mood too.  I'm not sure how best to approach that, or even if others have been down this same road. It would be ideal to switch things for moods with only a couple of keyboard commands.

Hi,

Dates is a different matter.

Tom is a US synth, so it is going to read dates in US style. For example, 11/09 is the 11th of September in the UK, but would be read by Tom as the 9th of November.

Note: it is only the US that have dates upside down. 😊

All the best

Steve

--
Computer Room Services
77 Exeter Close
Stevenage
Hertfordshire
SG1 4PW
T: +44(0)1438-742286
M: +44(0)7956-334938
F: +44(0)1438-759589
E: steve@comproom.co.uk
W: https://www.comproom.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of John Covici
Sent: 16 September 2020 20:15
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

And you should see what Tom does with dates! Its awful and there is no dictionary entry that would solve it.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2020 12:56:29 -0400,
Richard Turner wrote:

[1 <text/plain; us-ascii (quoted-printable)>] All I can say now is
that the Tom voice does not say good.
I loaded Nathan to check, and yes, Nathan says good.
If entering gd in the dictionary and then g d with a space between them in the replacement doesn't work, then it is the Nathan voice being stubborn and not honoring the Jaws setting.



Richard
"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must
pass himself," and we forget that only grace can break the cycle of
ancient hatreds among peoples. (It is notable that while I have
regretted not granting grace to others, I've never once regretted
extending it.)" - Edward Herbert

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Kevin
Minor
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 9:43 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

Hi.

I'm using the Nathan Compact voice.

Oh well, it is what it is, but it's annoying.

Kevin and Jilly

From: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
<main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>> On Behalf Of Richard
Turner
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 12:15 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
Subject: Re: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

I'm taking back everything I said on this topic.
Kevin, my Vocalizer Tom Enhanced speaks your example perfectly as g d not good.

Which voice are you using exactly?

And, I have actually never heard Grahams mail for gmail.



Richard
"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must
pass himself," and we forget that only grace can break the cycle of
ancient hatreds among peoples. (It is notable that while I have
regretted not granting grace to others, I've never once regretted
extending it.)" - Edward Herbert

From: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
<main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>> On Behalf Of Kevin
Minor
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 8:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io<mailto:main@jfw.groups.io>
Subject: Is there a way to not have Vocalizer substitute what it thinks works for abbreviations?

Hi.

I'm encountering an issue with Vocalizer and JAWS. It's substituting what it thinks something should be, and it's wrong. Let me illustrate.

There is a ham radio called the GD-77. Vocalizer says it's the good 77, and that's not right. The letters should be spelled out. I tried to do a dictionary entry for the word, but it didn't work. I also never knew Google had a service called grams mail. This is annoying, and because of it I'm back to good old Eloquence. I prefer Vocalizer's speech, but not with all the so-called "helpful" abbreviation conversions.

Thanks in advance.

Kevin and Jilly






[2 <text/html; us-ascii (quoted-printable)>]

--
Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is:
How do
you spend it?

John Covici wb2una
covici@ccs.covici.com

That happens when you rejoin the list and send 9 or 10 of them within an hour. One would have been sufficient…

James,

List Admin

I guess they got approved all at the same time.

Pastor Gil

Dear God… So. Many. Messages.

I think I subscribed twice.

Pastor Gil

I guess they got approved all at the same time.

Pastor Gil

Dear God… So. Many. Messages.

I think I subscribed twice.

Pastor Gil

Yes.

Dear God… So. Many. Messages.

I think I subscribed twice.

Pastor Gil

On Sep 21, 2020, at 7:44 PM, Pastor Gil Pries <gilp@...> wrote:



Am I coming through?

 

Pastor Gil

I think I subscribed twice.

Pastor Gil

Hahah…it’s all relative; Canadians don’t say “aboot” either.

Sorry, but people in the United states do not say “aboot” unless they happen to live very close to the Canadian border.

I’m not sure why that is, but the vast majority of people here in the U.S. say about, not aboot.

IN fact, most U.S. natives make fun of the Canadians for saying aboot.

I was chatting with someone from New Zealand and she told me some of her compatriots were mimicking the  U S accent. Thus it is not just the screen reader voices, it is Different nations voices.  Example, apparently Canadians and United States persons say aboot instead of about, according to the woman in N Z.   

On Mon, Sep 21, 2020 at 06:10 PM, JM Casey wrote:

These more human sounding voices were not meant to be used at the fast rates many blind people listen to synthesised speech.

-
And knowing some of those blind people, I still cannot comprehend how they comprehend what they're hearing.  Clearly they do, but my head (auditory processing, in particular) reels at the speech rate that some of my clients routinely use for themselves.  I have on more than one occasion had to ask someone I was tutoring on something new to them in the screen reader to greatly reduce the speed so that I could be sure that what I expected to hear was what I was indeed hearing!
 
--

Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041  

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
       ~ Lawrence Krauss

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of JM Casey
Sent: September 20, 2020 8:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: synthesizer versus voice

Cool writeup/analysis. I've no doubt we will get there, but I don't
think we're there yet -- I've heard a few top-of-the-lie commercial
voice synthesisers and to me they still haven't quite grasped the
inflection and intonations of the human voice. But they're getting
eerily close. So ..in time. And of course, all our ears are different,
too, and this "uncanny valley" aspect is probably already nonexistent
for

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Orlando
Enrique Fiol via groups.io
Sent: September 20, 2020 11:10 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: synthesizer versus voice

At 09:00 PM 9/20/2020, Mark asked:
>what's the difference between a synthesizer and a voice?

A synthesizer uses electronic processes to fashion complex timbres
from acoustic or electronic sound sources. For example, a triangle
wave may be combined with clarinet samples to produce a "synthesized"

However, I suspect your question pertains to our text-to-speech engines.
There, the distinction between speech synthesizer and voice operates
on two levels. The synthesizer is the speech engine as a whole, while
individual voices (such as male, female, child, etc.) can be chosen.
On a deeper level, though, the difference between synthesizer and
voice rests in the sources for phonemes used by a text-to-speech
engine. With purely synthesized speech, human speech is electronically
modeled, just as digital FM synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7
attempted to create acoustic-sounding timbres using electronic sources
rather than actual samples. There's a vital difference between trying
to make an electronic keyboard sound like a violin or banjo, and
actually recording single notes on violin or banjo in order to spread
them

The old-fashioned speech synthesizer uses no human speech samples,
while most text-to-speech engines today do indeed use exclusively
human speech samples. That's why today's voices sound more realistic
and human; they're fashioned from recordings of human beings speaking
different words or parts of words, from which the speech engine
constructs its vocabulary libraries.
As a sidenote, this human speech sampling and modeling technology is
at the point where one can theoretically make a speech engine from
anyone's voice, which has produced some unintended byproducts. It is
now possible to create convincing audio recordings of people allegedly
saying things they never actually said. This is done by sampling
enough of their recorded speech to formulate a lexicon not only of
vocabulary, but more important, of their vocal inflections, the rises,

With this modeling technology, we soon will not know for certain
whether people have actually said what we've heard them say on audio
recordings or videos.
So, there you have it: a little primer on synthesis and sampled sound.


Orlando Enrique Fiol
Ph.D. in Music theory
University of Pennsylvania: November, 2018 Professional
Pianist/Keyboardist, Percussionist and Pedagogue Charlotte, North
Carolina