I can select text and then right-click on it and select Speech -> Start Speaking and my Mac reads out the text aloud in English. How can I get it to read Spanish or German text out loud?
iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), null
May I suggest that you visit the Text to Speech panel, and on the System Voice selector, choose Customize… and download a native German and/or Spanish voice for reading the respective text passage. This is the only way you are going to hear that text spoken with accurate tonal authenticity.
I copied a passage from www.stern.de, and when combined with the German voice Anna, it just made me feel better hearing the pronunciation in a proper native tongue. Anna is a 1GB download.
Also, if you want to capture the Text to Speech in an audio file, that you can play/pause/resume/stop, one could create an Automator Service that once the text is selected, one visits the application menu : Services : Text to Voice File.
Here is what I am using. Note that I have Anna's German voice selected in the first action of the Service workflow. The first action writes an .aiff audio file that is passed to the Encode to MPEG Audio action where it is transformed into a 128kbps 44.1 Khz AAC .m4a file. The last action renames the Text2VoiceFile.m4a to Text2VoiceFile001.m4a, and will increment this sequence as you produce newer audios.
I named my Automator Service as Text to Voice File (de), so it stands out on the Services menu. Make another service for Spanish, and name it Text to Voice File (es).
May I suggest that you visit the Text to Speech panel, and on the System Voice selector, choose Customize… and download a native German and/or Spanish voice for reading the respective text passage. This is the only way you are going to hear that text spoken with accurate tonal authenticity.
I copied a passage from www.stern.de, and when combined with the German voice Anna, it just made me feel better hearing the pronunciation in a proper native tongue. Anna is a 1GB download.
Also, if you want to capture the Text to Speech in an audio file, that you can play/pause/resume/stop, one could create an Automator Service that once the text is selected, one visits the application menu : Services : Text to Voice File.
Here is what I am using. Note that I have Anna's German voice selected in the first action of the Service workflow. The first action writes an .aiff audio file that is passed to the Encode to MPEG Audio action where it is transformed into a 128kbps 44.1 Khz AAC .m4a file. The last action renames the Text2VoiceFile.m4a to Text2VoiceFile001.m4a, and will increment this sequence as you produce newer audios.
I named my Automator Service as Text to Voice File (de), so it stands out on the Services menu. Make another service for Spanish, and name it Text to Voice File (es).
jchwcpa wrote:
How can I get it to read Spanish or German text out loud?
Go to system prefs/accessibility/speech and set the system voice to one that fits the language.
I wonder if you would have to change the language settings entirely for the Mac?
Have my Mac read foreign language text out loud
