Forum Discussion
Text to speech - How to fix the first word being cut off
I've been using Articulate 360's voice to speech feature in software simulations, instead of the text bubbles. I've noticed that frequently the first word or syllable gets cut off. For example If a sentence starts with "To edit a document..." The "To" gets cut off. I tried inserting some spaces with the keyboard space bar or dots to no avail.
Any tricks to fix this?
Also, are there tricks to improve the intonation? I've noticed that adding commas between words can make a difference sometimes.
- RichardWatsonSuper Hero
Amos,
Not sure what you are running into. I just created a quick sample in AS360 using text to speech and it didn't cut off the "To" in a sentence I setup. Did you run into this with only selected characters? I think I used the " Joanna" voice.
Richard
Hi Amos,
I haven't run into that either, but we'd be happy to take a look at your example too.
Some basic tips and tricks on using text to speech:
- always look to use proper punctuation and spelling (i.e. it’s vs. its)
- use commas to break up speech, it will act like a pause.
- spell out abbreviation words such as “Street” vs. St.
- use “one half” instead of 1/2
- avoid use of any slang
- try to spell words out phonetically to allow for easier reading to speech
The text-to-speech algorithm is constantly learning and updating based on all the input from users, so you should see a consistently better experience each time.
My team shared a basic thought that you don’t want to leave a lot of interpretation to a computer, so being as specific and concise as possible is key here!
Let us know if you need anything else.
- NielsVollrath-5Community Member
Can we get someone from Articulate to chime in on this problem that seems unresolved 7 years later? Adding a second silence at the start helps, but not all TTS can afford to have a second delay before being played. This is a huge hassle and gives a terrible user expierence for our learners.
- AmosStark-48dedCommunity Member
Ashley,
Thanks a lot for your useful tips.
First of all I just want to say the the text to speech is an awesome feature which I am using extensively. However, this is an important thing that detracts it.
Sometimes, when I play a video with text to speech, the first syllable (or full word if it is very short such as "if" or "to") is not heard. Perhaps it's because the video can be a bit sluggish when it starts playing. Regardless, it is good practice to have slight (say 1 sec.) silence at the start of each clip so that the learner has a moment to "tune their brain" into the clip before it starts talking. At In some instances, it is also useful to insert moments of silence between words to emphasize a point or switch to a new concept that you introduce.
My question is...
Is there a trick to insert a silence before or between words?
I tried inserting different characters such as commas or periods but that it didn't help. Imagine how simple it would be. Each comma adds a second of silence For example:
Example 1
,,,,Welcome to this course.Example 2
Take a moment to look at this diagram,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Have you noticed the bla, bla, bla?A workaround is to Edit Audio and insert a silence. However, that's time consuming and lost once you edit the Text-to-Speech or regenerate it.
Hi Amos,
I really like your idea of using a specific "code" to insert silence before or between words, and that would make an excellent feature request! I'll pass the idea along to our product team for you.
For now, use punctuation, such as commas and semicolons, when you want to insert brief pauses between words. If you need a pause before the first word, convert your text to speech, then open the clip in the built-in audio editor and insert silence where it's needed.
- TomRothCommunity Member
As humans we don't always follow phonetics in our speech patterns as rigidly as these character voices do so you end up with word pronunciations that sound odd and more robotic. If you could add the ability to mark vowels to be long or short in the text to speech edit box that would help some. Sometimes you want the short "a" instead of the long "a" or vice-versa.
Then the other thing humans do is vocal inflection. We don't hit every single word in a sentence exactly the same emphasis, or in the case of these character voices, with no emphasis on any word. That's what makes them sound robotic. Perhaps in the text to speech edit box you could add the ability to highlight a word and make it bold and then then the character would emphasis that word a little bit more. And, for words that have more than one syllable, you could highlight and bold just the syllable that you want emphasized. That would really help make these voices sound more natural. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Tom.
I've submitted a feature request on your behalf.
- MariaPowell-5ebCommunity Member
Thank you all for the suggestions. I have been using text to speech a lot and many times I have to write the words differently to have a good pronunciation. The other issue I find is that in many cases when I write a sentence and put a period, seems like the voice does not recognize the end of the sentence.
As for use the phonetics to write, it really doesn't work really well. Any other suggestions?
- MariaPowell-5ebCommunity Member
Here is an example of what I mentioned on my previous message.
On this recording I have two sentences:
"Once site access is ready, your account will be set up with your email address as your user name."
"You will receive an email with a link to log in and set your own, secure password."
To me it doesn't almost sound as two sentences. Let me know what you think.
Maria
Hi Maria,
Thanks for including the WAV file. I do hear a pause between the two sentences. For a longer pause, you could add silence using the audio editor.
Let me know if you have other questions!
- AmosStark-85aa2Community Member
Several months later and I am still having problems with the first word of text to speech being cut off. My customers have also complained about this and I find it hard to reproduce. It only happens sometimes. When you replay, it usually doesn't happen again.
I am attaching a short.story file with a few blank slides which have text to speech insterted.
Please preview the entire course and listen to the first word in the first slide. The word is "To" and it only gets cut off when you play the first slide.
Any ideas how to avoid this issue?
- ankitmalhotraCommunity Member
Same issue at my end
- JeremyCheath992Community Member
Hello, While they still have not addressed this issues in the latest version of storyline I do have a suggestion that works for me, if you would like to try.
After creating your speak-to-text go into edit audio add 1 second of silence then on the Timeline slide align the audio file.
- NielsVollrath-5Community Member
I too have this issue, all the time. It is a huge problem.
- ThereseMicha925Community Member
I resolved it by leaving a space before the narration started, and it worked fine.
All the best!