Help: Text to Speech voice / Speak Selection voice ?

Howdy,

Check out Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text

Choose a voice

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Accessibility, then click Spoken Content.
2. Click the System Voice pop-up menu, then choose a voice.
3. To adjust how fast the voice speaks, drag the Speaking Rate slider.
4. Click Play to test the voice and speaking rate.

You can also Add a new voice. I enjoy the Siri Female (India) for example.

ivan

Howdy again,

Another thing to try, since this is only happening with one voice, Siri Female United States, try deleting that voice an re-download it.

Again, from Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text

Delete a downloaded voice

You can delete a voice that you downloaded to your Mac.

1. 1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Accessibility, then click Spoken Content.
   2. Click the System Voice pop-up menu, then choose Customize.
   3. Deselect the checkbox for the voice you want to delete.
   4. Click OK, then click Delete.

ivan

So, on this Christmas Day of 2020, I was able to find a workaround! Enjoy this Christmas present from me to you.

In most native maOS applications in macOS Big Sur, there are two menu items:

Edit > Speech > Start Speaking

Edit > Speech > Stop Speaking

We can leverage these menu items to get macOS Big Sur to pronounce the words we select in that application with the System Voice that we select in System Preferences > Accessibility > Spoken Content: Speak Selection > Options.

Therefore:

• If you use the keyboard shortcut that assigned in System Preferences > Accessibility > Spoken Content: Speak Selection > Options (default is Option + Esc), the behavior or the System Voice that you invoke to read the selected text is inconsistent and often the wrong language/system voice is used in Big Sur.
• If you use the menu item located in your application > Edit > Speech > Start Speaking, then the System Voice that you invoke to read the selected text is always consistent and the correct language/system voice is used in Big Sur. The System Voice invoke in this way is the System Voice that you have selected in System Preferences > Accessibility > Spoken Content: Speak Selection > Options.

It's possible to assign a custom shortcut to the menu Start Speaking located in your application Edit > Speech > Start Speaking.

This is how it's done:

1. Navigate to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts (last on the list of types of shortcuts)
2. Click on the "+" sign at the bottom of the right-hand pane of the window
3. In the new dialog window that opens:

• under Application: select All Applications
• under Menu Title: type in Start Speaking
• place the mouse pointer in the field next to Keyboard Shortcut: and enter the shortcut you want to use to properly invoke the System Voice to read a selected text in every application that has this menu item.

Note: The default shortcut assigned in Accessibility > Spoken Content: Speak Selection > Options (Option + Esc) cannot be used here. So, leave that shortcut alone and come up with a new shortcut that is convenient for you to use. Personally, I chose Cmd Option Spacebar, and this shortcut works perfectly.

• (Optional Step) If you want to create another shortcut for Stop Speaking, repeat the procedure described above but create a new entry under All Applications and name it Stop Speaking. Then assign another shortcut to it.

Note: Personally, I chose (Command Option Control Spacebar).

I hope this procedure will give you something to enjoy at the end of this awful 2020.

Let's rebuild your speech voice preferences.

Get out of System Preferences.

In the Finder, hold down the Option key while Go (menu) > Library.

Then in Preferences, rename com.apple.speech.voice.prefs.plist to com.apple.speech.voice.prefs.plist_old

It will be rebuilt when you change to a new voice. And try several voices again.

Further testing, I have seen it not change immediately as well.

Please customize to add a totally different voice, like Siri Female (India), let it download and try it.

If it works, try changing back to Siri Female (United States)

Try also selecting different text when testing a new voice.

When you click [Play] in the Spoken Content screen, do you hear the voice you have selected?