Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Azure Speech’s Neural TTS empowers organizations to serve users in more than 100 languages

This post is co-authored with Qinying Liao, Binggong Ding, Garfield He and Sheng Zhao

 

Neural Text to Speech (Neural TTS), a powerful speech synthesis feature of Azure Cognitive Services for Speech, enables you to convert text to lifelike speech which is close to human-parity.

 

Today we are glad to announce that Speech Service’s Neural TTS is now extended to support 49 new languages/variants, which includes more variants for those languages being used across many countries/regions such as: Arabic, English, Spanish, Tamil, etc. and new languages such as Afrikaan, Khmer, Burmese, Persian, Uzbek, Zulu, etc. With this update, Azure Neural TTS now supports 119 languages/variants with 278 voices out-of-box. With other Cognitive Services including Speech-to-Text,  OCR and Translator extended to 100+ languages, Azure AI is one big step closer to its ambition to empower every organization and everyone on the planet to achieve more, without the language barrier.

 

GarfieldHe_0-1635943342481.png

 

12 new languages

While there are thousands of spoken languages in the world, the top 1% (~70 language) accounts for the 80%+ of the global population (check reference here). With years’ development, the TTS technology has been available in many common spoken languages and has been updated in these languages with many advanced features available. However,  due to the lack of training data or business needs, there’s almost nothing available for those less spoken languages. Inspired by the vision to remove the language barrier for everyone and powered by the low resource setting TTS technology, we keep working to expand our capability to support those less touched languages in the world.

 

Today, we are adding 12 new languages to our neural TTS portfolio.

 

Check out how the voices in these languages sound like with the samples below.

Locale code

Locale name

Voice name

Gender

Sample text

Audio

af-ZA

Afrikaans (South Africa)

Adri

Female

Bepaal die formaat en die styl waarin jy gaan skryf.

af-ZA

Afrikaans (South Africa)

Willem

Male

Besluit op ’n persoonlike skryfstyl vir jouself.

am-ET

Amharic (Ethiopia)

Ameha

Male

የፌዴራልና የክልሎች ቅንጅት እንዴት ይገለጻል?

am-ET

Amharic (Ethiopia)

Mekdes

Female

ከሚመለከታቸው አካላት ጋር እንዲስተካከሉ እያደረግን ነው።

bn-BD

Bangla (Bangladesh)

Nabanita

Female

তুমি কি আগামীকাল বিকেলে আসতে পারবে?

bn-BD

Bangla (Bangladesh)

Pradeep

Male

সে কেন সময়মতো সেখানে যেতে পারেনি?

fa-IR

Persian (Iran)

Dilara

Female

افزایش قیمت ارز در بازار همواره یکی از دلایل اصلی افزایش قیمت طلا و سکه بوده است.

fa-IR

Persian (Iran)

Farid

Male

مردم چشم دارند، می‌بینند!

fil-PH

Filipino (Philippines)

Angelo

Male

Pagbaba sa paliparan, titingnan ang temperatura ng turista.

fil-PH

Filipino (Philippines)

Blessica

Female

Ano ang kasalukuyang nangungunang palabas sa telebisyon?

gl-ES

Galician (Spain)

Roi

Male

Onte me dixeches que non había clase.

gl-ES

Galician (Spain)

Sabela

Female

Teño un compañeiro de escola que busca traballo.

jv-ID

Javanese (Indonesia)

Dimas

Male

Banyu segara ing sacedhake kali duwe kandungan uyah sing sithik.

jv-ID

Javanese (Indonesia)

Siti

Female

Adik kulo ingkang jaler pinter matematika.

km-KH

Khmer (Cambodia)

Piseth

Male

តើអ្នកចង់ទិញផ្លែឈើអ្វី?

km-KH

Khmer (Cambodia)

Sreymom

Female

អាគារទីស្នាក់មានចំនួន ៥ នៅភ្នំពេញ។

my-MM

Burmese (Myanmar)

Nilar

Female

ပြည်တွင်းစစ် ရပ်သွားအောင် အိုင်ဗရီကို့စ် အသင်းခေါင်းဆောင် ဒရော့ဘာ ဘယ်လို ကူညီခဲ့လဲ။

my-MM

Burmese (Myanmar)

Thiha

Male

ရိုဆန်သယ်လ် ကနေ မီနာမီနိုအထိ ပေါင် တစ်ဒသမလေးခုနစ် ဘီလျံကို ဘယ်လိုသုံးခဲ့လဲ။

so-SO

Somali (Somalia)

Muuse

Male

Sidee ku baratay luqadda?

so-SO

Somali (Somalia)

Ubax

Female

Waxaana lagu tiriyaa tababaraha soo hoyiyay guusha ugu badan caalamka.

su-ID

Sundanese (Indonesia)

Jajang

Male

Lamun leungeun katuhu mere, ulah nepika leungeun kenca apaleun.

su-ID

Sundanese (Indonesia)

Tuti

Female

Abdi hoyong ngabagjakeun kanu jadi sepuh.

uz-UZ

Uzbek (Uzbekistan)

Madina

Female

Kuniga yarim soat kitob oʻqib turaman.

uz-UZ

Uzbek (Uzbekistan)

Sardor

Male

Har kuni ertalab sport bilan shugʻullanaman.

zu-ZA

Zulu (South Africa)

Thando

Female

Isiko lamaZulu ngelinye lamasiko ase-Afrika athokozisa kakhulu.

zu-ZA

Zulu (South Africa)

Themba

Male

Umbuso wakwaZulu nawo uhamba ngegama lamaZulu umbuso noma uMbuso wakwaZulu.

 

37 variants for more popular languages

Beside the new languages above, some Languages like Arabic, English, Spanish are widely spoken across different countries and regions, and they have their own accent and linguistic specialties. We have supported some main markets, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia for Arabic; United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, India, etc. for English; Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia for Spanish, etc. There are still more variants , and that is the one of the main goals we are trying to achieve with this update.

 

Check out the new voices with the audio samples below in these language variants.

Locale code

Locale name

Voice name

Gender

Sample text

Audio link

ar-AE

Arabic (United Arab Emirates)

Fatima

Female

ما أهي أكبر دولة في العالم؟

ar-AE

Arabic (United Arab Emirates)

Hamdan

Male

اصبر لكل مُصِيبةٍ وتجلد واعلم بأن الدهر غير مُخلد.

ar-BH

Arabic (Bahrain)

Ali

Male

أنا مشغول بالي كتير عليك حبيبي.

ar-BH

Arabic (Bahrain)

Laila

Female

إلهي كم هذا رائع!

ar-DZ

Arabic (Algeria)

Amina

Female

الجمال جمال النفس الطيبة وليس جمال الوجه والقلب مسود بالأحقاد.

ar-DZ

Arabic (Algeria)

Ismael

Male

الورود حياة المحبين فاحرص على اقتناء وردتك البيضاء.

ar-IQ

Arabic (Iraq)

Bassel

Male

شرفت والله طمني كيف كانت رحلتك؟

ar-IQ

Arabic (Iraq)

Rana

Female

سيء جداً أن تُمارس السعادة وأنت مُرهق من الداخل.

ar-JO

Arabic (Jordan)

Sana

Female

عن جد عم تحكي شو حلو هالخبر!

ar-JO

Arabic (Jordan)

Taim

Male

قرأت عن أهمية التمارين الرياضية البسيطة لكبار السن.

ar-KW

Arabic (Kuwait)

Fahed

Male

على قدر أهل العزم تأتي العزائم. الأفعال أبلغ من الأقوال.

ar-KW

Arabic (Kuwait)

Noura

Female

عامل الناس كما تحب أن يعاملوك.

ar-LY

Arabic (Libya)

Iman

Female

لولا الأمل في الغد لما عاش المظلوم حتى اليوم.

ar-LY

Arabic (Libya)

Omar

Male

ما أجمل الربيع وأحلى نسماته!

ar-MA

Arabic (Morocco)

Jamal

Male

يا ليت لنا مثل ما أوتي قارون!

ar-MA

Arabic (Morocco)

Mouna

Female

أنا مشغول بالي كتير عليك حبيبي.

ar-QA

Arabic (Qatar)

Amal

Female

هل تمكنت ماليزيا وغيرها من دول العالم من محاربة الفساد؟

ar-QA

Arabic (Qatar)

Moaz

Male

يا ليت لنا مثل ما عندك من العلم والثروة!

ar-SY

Arabic (Syria)

Amany

Female

عامل الناس كما تحب أن يعاملوك.

ar-SY

Arabic (Syria)

Laith

Male

يا ليت لنا مثل ما عندك من العلم والثروة!

ar-TN

Arabic (Tunisia)

Hedi

Male

ما أجمل الربيع وأحلى نسماته!

ar-TN

Arabic (Tunisia)

Reem

Female

ما يأتي بسهولة يذهب بسهولة، ما تجلبه الرياح تأخذه الزوابع.

ar-YE

Arabic (Yemen)

Maryam

Female

سنبدأ العمل عند الساعة 3 بعد الظهر.

ar-YE

Arabic (Yemen)

Saleh

Male

يا ليت لنا مثل ما عندك من العلم والثروة!

en-KE

English (Kenya)

Asilia

Female

We packed a lot of food for the trip.

en-KE

English (Kenya)

Chilemba

Male

Where have you been?

en-NG

English (Nigeria)

Abeo

Male

You're very much welcome!

en-NG

English (Nigeria)

Ezinne

Female

I'm having so much fun!

en-TZ

English (Tanzania)

Elimu

Male

Let's meet tomorrow at 6 pm.

en-TZ

English (Tanzania)

Imani

Female

The capital of Tanzania is spelled as D O D O M A.

es-BO

Spanish (Bolivia)

Marcelo

Male

¿Qué ventajas le dio a usted como cirujana ese sistema?

es-BO

Spanish (Bolivia)

Sofia

Female

Quiero conocer más rincones de Bolivia.

es-CL

Spanish (Chile)

Catalina

Female

¡Estoy orgulloso de ti!

es-CL

Spanish (Chile)

Lorenzo

Male

¿Cuál es la palabra que menos te gusta?

es-CR

Spanish (Costa Rica)

Juan

Male

¿Qué tienes que nadie más tiene?

es-CR

Spanish (Costa Rica)

Maria

Female

Me encantan los desafíos, me apasiona ser gestora de cambios.

es-CU

Spanish (Cuba)

Belkys

Female

¡Estoy orgulloso de ti!

es-CU

Spanish (Cuba)

Manuel

Male

No tenemos límites, cada uno define su techo.

es-DO

Spanish (Dominican Republic)

Emilio

Male

El trabajo que realizo me enamora todos los días.

es-DO

Spanish (Dominican Republic)

Ramona

Female

¡Fue genial!, como una película

es-EC

Spanish (Ecuador)

Andrea

Female

¡Seguinos en nuestras redes sociales, no te pierdas de nada!

es-EC

Spanish (Ecuador)

Luis

Male

Aprendió a tocar guitarra con su abuelo.

es-GQ

Spanish (Equatorial Guinea)

Javier

Male

Mejorando la calidad de vida de la mujer.

es-GQ

Spanish (Equatorial Guinea)

Teresa

Female

La casa que está al borde del mar es luminosa.

es-GT

Spanish (Guatemala)

Andres

Male

¿Cuantas veces a la semana vas al gimnasio?

es-GT

Spanish (Guatemala)

Marta

Female

¿Quien gano las elecciones?

es-HN

Spanish (Honduras)

Carlos

Male

El cheesecake que comimos estaba delicioso.

es-HN

Spanish (Honduras)

Karla

Female

¿A que horas llega el vuelo de Miami?

es-NI

Spanish (Nicaragua)

Federico

Male

¡Que bueno verte de nuevo!

es-NI

Spanish (Nicaragua)

Yolanda

Female

El bacon de pavo es mas sano que el de cerdo.

es-PA

Spanish (Panama)

Margarita

Female

Nuestra maestra de mecanografía era la mejor de todas.

es-PA

Spanish (Panama)

Roberto

Male

¡Cuanto frio hace, me estoy congelando!

es-PE

Spanish (Peru)

Alex

Male

Explica una vez más la tarea, por favor.

es-PE

Spanish (Peru)

Camila

Female

¡Que buena sorpresa me diste!

es-PR

Spanish (Puerto Rico)

Karina

Female

¡Felicidades por tu bebe!

es-PR

Spanish (Puerto Rico)

Victor

Male

Estoy pensando en pedir hamburguesas para que todos almorcemos.

es-PY

Spanish (Paraguay)

Mario

Male

¡Détente y ten cuidado!

es-PY

Spanish (Paraguay)

Tania

Female

Los gatos son mascotas altamente independientes.

es-SV

Spanish (El Salvador)

Lorena

Female

¿Has visto mis llaves?

es-SV

Spanish (El Salvador)

Rodrigo

Male

Desde sus seis años mostró talento para la música.

es-UY

Spanish (Uruguay)

Mateo

Male

Es un beneficio directo para todos los usuarios.

es-UY

Spanish (Uruguay)

Valentina

Female

¿Cuáles son los feriados laborables para este año en Uruguay?

es-VE

Spanish (Venezuela)

Paola

Female

¡No te preocupes por todos ellos!

es-VE

Spanish (Venezuela)

Sebastian

Male

Nos tomará 3 horas llegar a la playa.

sw-TZ

Swahili (Tanzania)

Daudi

Male

Nidhamu ni sababu kuu ya mafanikio.

Lugha unaridhisha ukitumiwa kwa ufasaha.

sw-TZ

Swahili (Tanzania)

Rehema

Female

 

ta-LK

Tamil (Sri Lanka)

Kumar

Male

எவ்வளவு அருமையான பாடல் அது!

ta-LK

Tamil (Sri Lanka)

Saranya

Female

இது நல்ல நிறம் தான்.

ta-SG

Tamil (Singapore)

Anbu

Male

கீழடி அகழாய்வு இந்திய வரலாற்றை திருத்தி எழுதும்?

ta-SG

Tamil (Singapore)

Venba

Female

என்ன ஒரு பெரிய ஆச்சரியம்!

ur-IN

Urdu (India)

Gul

Female

میرے پاس چھپانے کے لیے کچھ نہیں ہے۔

ur-IN

Urdu (India)

Salman

Male

دنیا بھر میں صحت کے شعبے میں بہتری کے لیے اقدامات کیے جا رہے ہیں۔

 

Get started

these updates, we’re excited to be powering natural and intuitive voice experiences for more customers. Text to Speech offers over 270 neural voices across over 119 languages and locales, which can serve you and your customers in different markets around the world.

In addition, the Custom Neural Voice capability enable organizations to create a unique brand voice in multiple languages and styles.

 

For more information:

Posted at https://sl.advdat.com/3wa3c0R