If a user wants to install those resources, the TTS API enables an application to query the platform for the availability of language files and can initiate their download and installation.
So the voice and dictionary are language-specific resources that need to be loaded before the engine can start to speak.Īlthough all Android-powered devices that support the TTS functionality ship with the engine, some devices have limited storage and may lack the language-specific resource files. The TTS engine needs to know which language to speak, as a word like 'Paris', for example, is pronounced differently in French and English. Also, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on, American and British accents for English are both supported. The TTS engine that ships with the Android platform supports a number of languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Languages and resources About the TTS resources We will then show how to make your Android application talk and how to configure the way it speaks. Also known as 'speech synthesis', TTS enables your Android device to 'speak' text of different languages.īefore we explain how to use the TTS API itself, let's first review a few aspects of the engine that will be important to your TTS-enabled application. We've introduced a new feature in version 1.6 of the Android platform: Text-To-Speech (TTS).
