5 ms·

I am happy to share feedback with the Polly team! Can you be more specific about what you believe sounds bad?

shawabawa3 8y ago
for what it's worth I thought it sounds fine. Maybe Milan sounds wrong to an Italian, but it sounds like how most Americans say Milan to me
- martin-adams 8y ago
  Yeah, I think you're right. I suspect the Italian pronunciation is like 'me-lan' rather than 'mil-an'. As for the general sound, I thought it was pretty good. I was impressed that Polly even adds in inhaling of breath. Subtle, yet effective.
  - DrNuke 8y ago
    Italian pronunciation for Milano is here: https://www.comesipronuncia.it/pronuncia/milano-10397 https://www.comesipronuncia.it/pronuncia/milano-10397 . That said, Italians generally mean the UK’s received pronunciation when studying and listening to English language, so heavy American accents are way too large and quite difficult to us.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chrisper 8y ago
Imho it speaks way too fast.
int0x80 8y ago
It is not too bad, but is not 'Maelan' but 'Meelan'.
- smcl 8y ago
  Well the English word "Milan" is already mangled compared to the Italian "Milano" - taking the italian pronunciation for the English word would be ... odd. I'm pretty confident that in the anglosphere "Mee-lan" would be the minority pronunciation compared to "Mih-lan".
  - DrNuke 8y ago
    Milan Kundera pronunciation comes neat though https://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/milan-kundera-1527 https://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/milan-kundera... , that’s how we are used over here.
    - smcl 8y ago
      Maybe it's because the name is Czech and we never anglicised his name? I honestly don't know with that one though. English is wildly unpredictable, if we drilled down deep enough we'd find plenty of counter examples that contradicted my reason for how we pronounce pan Kundera's first name :-) However for the city, think of it this way (sorry I'm gonna use some awful phonetic spelling here!) you and all the other Italians use the 100% correct pronunciation of Meelano. Somewhere back in History it became normal to call it "Milan" in English. Calling it Meelan is not only still wrong in Italian, it's also wrong (or nearly unused) in English. It's the same way you have your own word for our city with its own pronunciation - Edimboorgo. If I say "well, that 'u' in the original 'Edinburgh' is pronounced uh so you should call it Edimbuhrgo" then you're now pronouncing it wrong in both Italian and English. For what it's worth I'd prefer it if English kept the original names - Milano, Torino, Roma, Napoli, Firenze, etc :D Edit I realised after typing this that I've heard wealthier Americans pronouncing some of these names even stranger still. Milan becoming Milawwn and Prague becoming Prawwwg which is like nails on a chalkboard to me, so maybe I can identify with you a little bit :-)
      - DrNuke 8y ago
        Ehehe, I see you well: let’s agree Mee-lah-n would be the best and neatest compared to received pronunciation and move on happily.
simon_acca 8y ago
Other than the "milan" pronunciation issue that others have outlined: the same word is pronounced in exactly the same way every time, which sounds wrong especially in long words such as "availability". The speed is too uniform; Polly handles commas (and full stops) brilliantly but there are other occasions in which a huan speaker pauses ever so slightly, for example to take a breath. Humans don't pronounce every single word fully, which contribute to make speech sounds fluid, this seems to be lacking completely from Polly.
CivBase 8y ago
When humans read aloud, they usually sound pretty bad. We tend to read sentences word-by-word instead of breaking it down into parts. I have no idea how Polly actually works, but it sounds to me like it is reading word-by-word like many humans do. I'm (probably overly) conscious about how I read things aloud. If I can't read a sentence quietly before I read it out loud, I try to diagram it as I go. For instance, if I identify what I'm reading as a prepositional phrase, I give it less vocal emphasis. Subjects and predicates usually get the most emphasis. Of course, what I described is much easier said than done. I wouldn't be surprised if you were already doing it. Good luck with Polly moving forward and thanks for being so willing to take user feedback!
lfx 8y ago
For me constantly gasp before sentences sound bit weird. It would be better if this occurs only after long sentences, would sound more natural. Nevertheless sounds really good!
- dx034 8y ago
  I thought the same. It would probably sound more realistic without the gasping. Most human speakers wouldn't gasp that audibly and at different parts of the text.
calabin 8y ago
After going back and forth between the article and the comments, I just realized that you're the author / Chief Evangelist at AWS. So on a sort of meta-note, I think it's pretty cool that AWS is still interacting with developers at this level.
Immortalin 8y ago
It would be really great if the general intonation can be improved to be nearer to Wavenet level. Also a lot of continental Germanic words e.g. Swedish, Dutch, Deutsch etc. and Français-derived words embedded in an English text won't be pronounced properly regardless of context. Source: I run an ebook to audiobook converter https://auditus.cc https://auditus.cc

for what it's worth I thought it sounds fine. Maybe Milan sounds wrong to an Italian, but it sounds like how most Americans say Milan to me

martin-adams 8y ago
Yeah, I think you're right. I suspect the Italian pronunciation is like 'me-lan' rather than 'mil-an'. As for the general sound, I thought it was pretty good. I was impressed that Polly even adds in inhaling of breath. Subtle, yet effective.
- DrNuke 8y ago
  Italian pronunciation for Milano is here: https://www.comesipronuncia.it/pronuncia/milano-10397 https://www.comesipronuncia.it/pronuncia/milano-10397 . That said, Italians generally mean the UK’s received pronunciation when studying and listening to English language, so heavy American accents are way too large and quite difficult to us.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

chrisper 8y ago

Imho it speaks way too fast.

int0x80 8y ago

It is not too bad, but is not 'Maelan' but 'Meelan'.

smcl 8y ago
Well the English word "Milan" is already mangled compared to the Italian "Milano" - taking the italian pronunciation for the English word would be ... odd. I'm pretty confident that in the anglosphere "Mee-lan" would be the minority pronunciation compared to "Mih-lan".
- DrNuke 8y ago
  Milan Kundera pronunciation comes neat though https://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/milan-kundera-1527 https://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/milan-kundera... , that’s how we are used over here.
  - smcl 8y ago
    Maybe it's because the name is Czech and we never anglicised his name? I honestly don't know with that one though. English is wildly unpredictable, if we drilled down deep enough we'd find plenty of counter examples that contradicted my reason for how we pronounce pan Kundera's first name :-) However for the city, think of it this way (sorry I'm gonna use some awful phonetic spelling here!) you and all the other Italians use the 100% correct pronunciation of Meelano. Somewhere back in History it became normal to call it "Milan" in English. Calling it Meelan is not only still wrong in Italian, it's also wrong (or nearly unused) in English. It's the same way you have your own word for our city with its own pronunciation - Edimboorgo. If I say "well, that 'u' in the original 'Edinburgh' is pronounced uh so you should call it Edimbuhrgo" then you're now pronouncing it wrong in both Italian and English. For what it's worth I'd prefer it if English kept the original names - Milano, Torino, Roma, Napoli, Firenze, etc :D Edit I realised after typing this that I've heard wealthier Americans pronouncing some of these names even stranger still. Milan becoming Milawwn and Prague becoming Prawwwg which is like nails on a chalkboard to me, so maybe I can identify with you a little bit :-)
    - DrNuke 8y ago
      Ehehe, I see you well: let’s agree Mee-lah-n would be the best and neatest compared to received pronunciation and move on happily.

simon_acca 8y ago

Other than the "milan" pronunciation issue that others have outlined: the same word is pronounced in exactly the same way every time, which sounds wrong especially in long words such as "availability". The speed is too uniform; Polly handles commas (and full stops) brilliantly but there are other occasions in which a huan speaker pauses ever so slightly, for example to take a breath. Humans don't pronounce every single word fully, which contribute to make speech sounds fluid, this seems to be lacking completely from Polly.

CivBase 8y ago

When humans read aloud, they usually sound pretty bad. We tend to read sentences word-by-word instead of breaking it down into parts. I have no idea how Polly actually works, but it sounds to me like it is reading word-by-word like many humans do. I'm (probably overly) conscious about how I read things aloud. If I can't read a sentence quietly before I read it out loud, I try to diagram it as I go. For instance, if I identify what I'm reading as a prepositional phrase, I give it less vocal emphasis. Subjects and predicates usually get the most emphasis. Of course, what I described is much easier said than done. I wouldn't be surprised if you were already doing it. Good luck with Polly moving forward and thanks for being so willing to take user feedback!

lfx 8y ago

For me constantly gasp before sentences sound bit weird. It would be better if this occurs only after long sentences, would sound more natural. Nevertheless sounds really good!

dx034 8y ago
I thought the same. It would probably sound more realistic without the gasping. Most human speakers wouldn't gasp that audibly and at different parts of the text.

calabin 8y ago

After going back and forth between the article and the comments, I just realized that you're the author / Chief Evangelist at AWS. So on a sort of meta-note, I think it's pretty cool that AWS is still interacting with developers at this level.

Immortalin 8y ago

It would be really great if the general intonation can be improved to be nearer to Wavenet level. Also a lot of continental Germanic words e.g. Swedish, Dutch, Deutsch etc. and Français-derived words embedded in an English text won't be pronounced properly regardless of context. Source: I run an ebook to audiobook converter https://auditus.cc https://auditus.cc