Read My Essay: Free Speech Tool

Text-to-Speech Converters in Learning

Not everyone is born to be a natural reader. Text-to-speech converters help many students in learning because they can open new horizons for those who have difficulty reading or learning:

✅ Those with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that causes problems with writing, spelling, and reading. So, listening to books and texts can be a great alternative to task.

✅ Those learning a new language. When you improve your listening skills, you will better understand the native speaker. Plus, by listening and imitating someone else’s speech, you can significantly improve your pronunciation.

✅ Those with impaired vision. This group of people can also benefit from text-to-speech converters. Listening to tasks, text, books can allow a visually impaired person to participate in the learning process normally.

✅ Auditory learners. Recent studies show that people can develop learning preferences. Nevertheless, most people can use both methods. Those who better understand information by listening are called auditory learners. These types of people can use audio materials to boost their learning abilities.

We have some recommendations to assist in learning:

• Choose the voice that you like and can understand better: simply because it can get challenging to absorb information and enjoy listening if the agent is unpleasant.
• Listen to the text more than once. Ideally, you should try to listen to it at least two times while focusing on structure, argumentation, formation of sentences.
• Listen to other people's essays and audiobooks because it is the best way to widen your overall knowledge and get new information while combining it with other errands.

Text-to-Speech Converters: History

It might seem that computers appeared not so long ago, or it belongs to the far future with robots and other futuristic objects. Nevertheless, it can even be challenging to determine if it is a voice recording or a speech synthesizer. Indeed, technology develops quickly. However, speaking machines have an extensive history starting in the 18th century. Here’s a brief timeline for the speech synthesis technology:

1769: Wolfgang von Kempelen created one of the first mechanical speaking machines. It used the bagpipe to produce noises similar to human speech.

1770: A scientist from Christian Kratzenstein builds a mechanical version of the human vocal system. He later wrote a book called Mechanism of Human Language with a Description of a Speaking Machine.

1837: English physicist inventor Charles Wheatstone rediscovered a version of the von Kempelen speaking machine. He was fascinated with music and sounds.

1928: American scientist Homer W. Dudley develops a speech analyzer called Vocoder. Dudley later turns Vocoder into Voder, a speech synthesizer operated with the keyboard.

1940: Frank Cooper developed a system called Pattern Playback. It can generate speech sounds from their frequency spectrum.

1953: American scientists Walter Lawrence creates PAT, the synthesizer that makes speech sounds by combining four, six, and later eight frequencies.

1958: MIT scientist George Rosen created the first text-to-speech synthesizer. The 1960s/1970s: A scientist from Bell Laboratories named Cecil Coker dedicates his time to better speech synthesis methods.

1978: Texas Instruments came up with a TMC0281 speech converter toy called Speak&Spell.

1984: Apple computer creates a Macintosh with a built-in MacInTalk speech synthesizer.

2001: AT&T produced Natural Voices. The technology is used in online applications and websites that can read emails out loud.

2011: Apple introduces the Siri app to iPhones, an intelligent voice helper to their smartphones. Currently, Siri is available on most Apple devices - Macbook, iPad, iWatch, etc.

2014: Microsoft releases Skype Translator that can automatically translate speech from English to 40 languages.

2015: Amazon comes up with a voice software called Alexa.

2016: Google releases Google Assistant. Google later incorporated it into smart Google Home technology.

Updated: Apr 5th, 2024