Are you tired of TTS with Google translation sound?
Here I am going to introduce you two websites that not only offer TTS, but they offer Chinese with Taiwanese accent, too!
- PiliApp – TTS
This website uses a very simple design, clear and easy, you only need to put your text into the box and choose “Microsoft Hanhan Desktop-Chinese (Taiwan)”, then click the play button, here you go! You can hear the sound right away! The pronunciation is pretty authentic to my ear, so if you’re looking for a quick way to practice your listening, this is it!
- Watson
This is a demo site, but what you can do with it is already pretty awesome! Just like PiliApp-TTS, you simply copy your text into the box, choose “Chinese, Mandarin (zh-CN): ZhangJing (female)” then click “Speak”, and the sound will come out immediately, too! This one also sounds very Taiwanese to me as well!
Comparison
I know as a Chinese learner, sometimes it may be hard for you to distinguish different accents, and you don’t want to practice with the one that you’re not planning to work on. These two sounds I recommend are both good, but the difference is that these two TTSs generate speech at a very different speed. As you might already notice that the speech speed on PiliApp-TTS is very fair, moderate, and makes it easy to understand. On the other hand, Watson’s TTS generates a rather fast speech, which might be hard to catch up and comprehend due to the speed.
HOWEVER, I see them as two different kinds of strength for different purposes.
If you’re using the TTS for VOCAB reading, I suggest PiliApp-TTS.
If you’re practicing listening on articles, I recommend PiliApp-TTS for entry and Watson for advanced level. In reading articles out loud, Watson does a better job in my opinion. Because it sounds more smooth and natural to my ear as a native speaker.
There is one little trick to adjust the speed of Watson’s speech, that is, add a “。” symbol(period) after each word(or the place you want it to pause longer than a “，”- comma) By doing this, if you’re working on vocab study with Watson, the speech speed will be alright!
AND for practicing vocab, I strongly recommend to put all your words into an Excel file like this:
The benefit of this is, you can add a new column any time, for example, add a column full with “。” or simply copy another column of words (to double the words-it will say each word twice in the TTS)
Okay! That’s about the two tools you can use for your Chinese learning especially when you’re looking for a Taiwanese accent TTS!
There is another website I personally use for making flashcards for my students, and it’s perfect for Chinese learners! See more details here
For more learning tricks and materials, come visit my website at http://www.inspiremandarin.com
I am also a podcaster, I produce podcast episodes focused on Chinese learning-Taiwanese Mandarin, Listen to my podcast now!
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