Speech Synthesis – Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing
Speech Synthesis
In many ways, voice synthesis is the inverse of speech recognition. It deals with vocalizing data, typically by transforming text into speech. A speech synthesis solution normally requires the following information:
- The text to be uttered
- The voice to be used to vocalize the speech
To make synthetic speech, the system usually breaks the text into words and gives each word a phonetic sound. The phonetic transcription is then broken up into prosodic units, such as phrases, clauses, or sentences, to make phonemes that will be transferred to audio format. Then, these phonemes are turned into sound by using a person’s voice to figure out things like pitch and timbre and making an audio waveform that can be sent to a speaker or saved to a file.
The output of speech synthesis can be used for a variety of applications, including
- Generating spoken responses to user input
- Creating voice menus for telephone systems
- In hands-free situations, reading email or text messages aloud
- Broadcasting announcements in public places such as train stations and airports
Let us take a look at the numerous uses for speech recognition systems. Here is a selection of them.
Mobile Phones
Voice commands are used in smartphones for call routing, speech-to-text processing, voice calling, and voice search. Users can respond to text messages without glancing at their phones. Speech recognition powers the keyboard and Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, on iPhones.
Word Processing Software
Software like Microsoft Word can also recognize speech, so users can say words and have them turned into text.
Education
The use of speech recognition software is a common practice in language education. The user’s voice is recognized by the program, which then provides assistance with pronunciation.
Customer Care
Automated voice assistants respond to consumer inquiries by providing relevant resources.
