martin@sdcsvax.UUCP (Bruce Martin) (04/29/86)
I want to teach my Amiga to speak Spanish! I propose to write an alternate translate library to map Spanish words into phoneme strings. The rom kernel manual says that narrate() understands an expanded Arpabet. Arpabet is an ascii version of the international phonetic alphabet. Does anyone have a reference to this? The table listed in the rom kernel manual seems to be only a subset of it. Bruce
porter@cbmvax.UUCP (05/02/86)
> I want to teach my Amiga to speak Spanish! I propose to write an alternate > translate library to map Spanish words into phoneme strings. We, at Commodore-Amiga are trying to do this now. Our only problem is that the firm that did the orginal speech for the Amiga wants $100K PER LANAGUAGE to translate it!!!! EGADS!!!! As you may know, Commodore is an international company with a VERY strong European sales organization. We had planned to produce national versions for: Germany/Austria France/Belguim Italy UK Netherland Sweden/Finland Spain/South America Iceland Denmark Switzerland Norway French Canadian ...and that's just for starters, but I'm not sure we can justify that kind of expense for each country. I mean, we're talking $6 Million for starters!!! At this price, I don't think we are getting our money's worth. As an alternative, I have my amiga speaking german, but I have to mis-spell it (using speech toy or some simple basic program) to make it come out right. For instance: Spreken zee doytsch? jah, noor eyen bisschen. Maybe the same can be done with Spanish? Habblay ess panyolay? (sorry, I don't know spanish pronounciation) Par lay voo fron cay? (French either) Hope this helps.... Jeff Porter Commodore Engineering
kdd@well.UUCP (Keith David Doyle) (05/05/86)
If I were Commodore, there's no way I'd pay 100k per language for a
translator. The U.S. one is not that great, I'd not even pay 100k for
that. I'm sure you can find experienced people willing to write them
cheaper. By the way, now that we are on the subject, has anyone thought
much about producing a 'talker' that uses real digitized phonemes rather
than the synthesized ones? The Amiga ought to be able to sound much more
like a Speak-And-Spell or better with the sound hardware it has. Sure, I
know, digitized phonemes are liable to take up lots of RAM space, but still
it could be a useful option. In fact, I'd like a utility that could build
the phonemes from MY voice, or Rod Serlings, or Orson Welles, etc.
Could be fun.
Keith Doyle
{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd