Using Google to Create Foreign Language MP3 Audio Files

Sep 19, 2012

You can use Google Translate for more than just translating text; it will also create MP3 Audio files of your translation for you to use in your courses!

I just created a Screenr tutorial for you to view the process.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/204928666

12 Replies
OWEN HOLT

I discovered it when creating a "Welcome" sound file to play in my Adobe Connect metting lobby.

The Slovak translations Google provided were by far the most inaccurate of the group. Fortunately, my colleague there provided the correct translation for me. All I had to do was paste the revised text into the window, hit the listen button, and I had a new MP3 that was forced to the words I chose instead of those Google provided.

OWEN HOLT

Looks promising once they build out their supported languages. However, they still rely on some other method to perform the actual translation.

Unitl then, it seems just as easy for me to click "translate" in google and locate their mp3 file as it would be to copy and paste translations here to accomplish the same result.

Jesse Kailahi

Hey there,

Does anyone have information regarding the terms of service / copyright associated with these exported files, if any? I think the google TTS voices are some of the most natural sounding voices out there, but there isn't much information on the legal parameters around using the files in commercial products, which includes elearning courses.

Also, below you will find another method for saving these files to your computer:

Use the following URL:

http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?tl=en&q="Your text"

Replace "en" with the voice you want to use (eg: "en" for English, "it" for Italian, "fr" for French, etc..)

Replace the text in quotes at the end of the URL with the text that you want spoken (this has to be pre-translated text if you are looking to create foreign language outputs).

Press enter and you are directed to a page that looks like the screenshot below. Right-click anywhere on the page and select "Save Page As". The resulting file is an mp3 of the text.

Patrick Dao

Thanks for these instructions. I tried them this morning for a simple Chinese translation from English. I substituted "zh" for "en" and put my Traditional characters in quotes at the end. I got an .mp3 file and saved it to my desktop. The sound is correct, but it plays as an endless loop when I select it from my desktop. What did I do wrong ? The original .mp3 was a single soundbite playing only once. It is only an endless loop on my desktop when I saved it. I saved it with a right click and chose the "save audio as..." option. I am using Firefox 36.0 and Windows 7. Any ideas ???  Thanks.

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