A great Text-to-Voice tool for Persian Students

For Persian language learners, the hardest part about improving their pronunciation ^[*] has been always figuring out how to pronounce what they read.

As a Persian Teacher for non-Persian speakers, I am fully aware that the resources to refer to are still scarce. That's why Persian Learners usually;

1) They will never know what they might be doing wrong until their teacher or Persian friends help them.

2) or don't know even how to read the words first hand, let alone fix them.

 Here are the most common two issues that Persian learners face in terms of Pronunciation:

 1. Pronouncing certain consonant sounds incorrectly

 Generally, substitution of  ‘g’ for ‘gh’ or ‘k’, or ‘h’  for ‘kh’ are among common mistakes. 

/goori/ instead of /ghoori/ قوری

/doktar/ instead of /dokhtar/  دُختَر

 I don't find these mistakes a source of misunderstanding, still, most students aim to become as flawless as possible.

2. Mixing up short and long vowel sounds

Vowel sounds, like consonant sounds, can also be confused easily. The main problem with vowels happens when you mix up long and short vowel sounds. For example, the long ‘ā’ sound in ‘ān’ with the short ‘a’ sound in ‘an.’ If you confuse these sounds, you end up saying completely different words. 

Read a quick fix for improving commonly mistaken consonant sounds here.

 One of the greatest ways to check your pronunciation is by using 
voice generators:

What is an AI Voice Generator?

For those of you who are not familiar with the AI Voice generators, they are being used both as a form of assistive technology, helping people with different needs. Such as those with learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia and ADHD), creators that need the voiceover component of their video footage, and, in our case, Persian Learners. 

But how?

You can use this text-to-speech (TTS) technology that reads text out loud in a human-like voice. 

I recommend Play.ht:

The tool is especially useful for converting text into natural voices. It relies on AI to generate audio and voices from IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. and it allows you to download the voice-over as MP3 and WAV files.

Check their website here: https://play.ht/

Listen to these two audios based on the following text:

من زبان فارسی را دوست دارم. چون می‌توانم با عزیزانم و دوستانم ارتباط برقرار کنم و شعر فارسی بخوانم. کلاس‌های شیرین به من کمک کرده که بتوانم نیازهای زبانی‌ام را برطرف کنم. زبان پارسی شیرین است!

It sounds so natural, right?

And, Yeah, seems I deliberately advertised myself.🤭

Now let's see for whom it is recommended?

 It is suitable for:

• Persian Speakers who don't know the Persian alphabet.
• Persian learners that need to practice their reading
• Persian Students who want to know the proper pronunciation of the words when they do not have access to their teacher.

In this case, it allows students to Convert blog posts to audio. Another good point is that the speaking rate allows you to increase or decrease the speed of the voice. 

Of course, this application has its own flaws, especially for the Persian Language.  You can’t 100% rely on every pronunciation. For instance, for the English Language, you can adjust the pitch of the voice to make it sound deeper or child-like which still is not available for the Persian Language.  

Still, 

This is the Best AI Voice Generator I’ve found so far. I am pretty positive they would add more options to the Persian language. But still. I’m impressed.

Do you use any other  AI Voice generator for the Persian language? Please let me know in the comment.

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*- A way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood.