Tami had a few questions about what Kindle 2′s Text To Speech feature sounds like and here are some samples, and also a few audio-book snippets to help you see the difference -
- A rather shaky video which lets you listen to the Kindle 2′s Male TTS voice – .
- Another somewhat shaky video for you to hear the Kindle 2′s Female Speaking Voice – .
- The Kindle 2 TTS Male Speaking Voice at the three speeds (slower, default, faster) – Kindle 2 Male Voice . The slower speed suits me best. I can also get by on the default speed – However, the faster speed becomes incomprehensible.
- Kindle 2 Female Speaking Voice at three speeds (slower, default, faster) – Kindle 2 Female Speaking Voice. Again, the slower speed I like best, and the default is sort of OK.
- A comparison of the exact same words from a LibriVox Reading, and as they come across on Kindle 2′s Read To Me. The book is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne - kindle2vslibrivox. The volunteer reading is rather rough around the edges and the Kindle 2 reading isn’t far off.
- An actual reading from Neil Gaiman of the first chapter of the graveyard book (read to the middle of the post for the embedded audio chapter) – you can see why he thinks Publishers should let Amazon continue to use the Read To Me feature with books.
- Finally, here’s how the Kindle does on a technical book - Kindle 2 Technical Book.
Let me know if you want more snippets of Kindle 2′s Read To Me feature or have any other questions.
Filed under: kindle 2 Tagged: | kindle 2 read to me
I have noticed that with Kindle from the snippets that you provided that the female voice appeals to me much more than the male voice. Though with my Mac I much prefer Alex to any of the female voices. I appreciate you being so kind and putting those up there for me.
Good audio books are like verbal theater – the reader changes his/her voice to suit each character, or there may be more than one reader. Tone and inflection add a kind of “body language” to the story.
While the kindle text-to-speech lacks these nuances, it is far better than I had anticipated. I actually like to listen and read along simultaneously. When just listening, it falls short when it comes to passages that lack punctuation – chapter titles for example. It zips right through them without the stops or pauses that punctuation provides.
Conclusion: Text-to-speech does not measure up to a good audiobook, but it provides a wonderful enhancement to the Kindle.
How can I change the speed of the TTS on my International Kindle?
When in a book, click the Aa button to get the Font Menu.
Now turn on Text To speech (third line).
once Text To speech is on, you can go font Menu again (using Aa) and the 4th line is now enabled – It’s Speech Rate.