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Say Verb
User contributed discussion of Say Verb.
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Inappropriate?We use the Say verb to speak the caller's phone # to them in certain instances. Sometimes, Twilio pronounces it as "8 trillion, five hundred 6 billion, twenty million...." and sometimes Twilio pronounces it as "8 5 0 6 0 2 0 0 0 0" - can you provide any insight on how it decides how to handle it? -
Inappropriate?Hi Ross,
You can ensure each number is spoken by placing spaces between them in the Say verb. "8 5 0 6 0 2 0 0 0 0" is exactly right. -
Inappropriate?Thanks John - yes, that is how we got it to work, but I would like to understand the assumptions Twilio makes as mentioned here:
"When translating text to speech, the <say> tag will make assumptions about how to pronounce numbers, dates, times, amounts of money, and other abbreviations."
</say> -
Inappropriate?Strings of numbers without spaces or punctuation are pronounced as a single big number while numbers with spaces or punctuation in them are not. If you are seeing an exception to this, let me know and I'll check it out.
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Inappropriate?If there are other rules or guidelines that would enable us to code 'hints' for more accurate text to speech conversion, it would be helpful if they could be posted somewhere.
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Inappropriate?It would be a good idea to have some sort of FAQ for pronunciations and shortcuts. We'll try and put something like that together for Say.
-john -
Inappropriate?I am running into a related problem where it pronounced numbers way too fast. I wish there was an attribute on the say verb that let me control speed. In the meantime, I will experiment with putting different punctuation in my string, but this is a productivity waster. -
Inappropriate?I wish Twilio used AT&T's Natural Voices (http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/t...), because the Twilio voices, especially the female one, is pretty creepy.
I’m amused
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Inappropriate?Kevin - you might find it pronounces numbers at a more desirable pace if you place a comma between them, like: "8, 0, 0, 5, 5, 5, 1, 2, 1, 2" and a period will lead to an even longer pause than a comma. We don't currently have speed controls for <say>, but that might be something we add in the future.
Perplexes - Haha! You're not the first to mention that the female voice is a little... odd, and we're definitely looking forward to improved TTS in the future. We'll make sure to let you know if anything changes.</say> -
Inappropriate?Yes a single period gives some pause, but it can be hard to remembering long number sequences.
One thing I've noticed is that you can't do something like "8. . . 0" to pronounce eight zero with a pause between. It will pronounce the word "dot" twice. Better to just go the extra mile and put a pause verb in between I guess. -
Inappropriate?I've found you can also introduce multiple say verbs together to provide a slight pause, maybe half-second. Like <say>One</say><say>Two<say>.</say></say>
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