Last-minute beta: new TTS voices and ABC Cantonese

mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Anybody want to do a quick double-check don't-call-it-a-beta-test-because-it-won't-last-that-long on our new text-to-speech voices and our new ABC Cantonese Dictionary add-on? Email (mikelove at pleco) or DM if so. This is actually for both iOS and Android, but on Android you'll need to be on our Google Play beta channel to be able to use the new voices.
 
L

lovepleco

秀才
Nice! Always great to see this improving even more. The play store's 'what's new' section says plc parts of speech. What is this? I read somewhere that you planned to do a major content update of plc, is this coming or has it already happened? Besides that I noticed and enjoy the bigger font setting option of Chinese characters, especially for flashcard learning. Didn't hear much difference to the paid text to speech.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That's the major PLC update - we're launching it in this update on Android (iOS users have had one-button access to it for months via "Add-ons" but the logical next step before releasing it in a subject-to-App-Review iOS update is to do a wide-scale launch on Android).
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Yeah, sorry, will send replies out shortly - whole weekend was tied up with some family-related matters and didn't have much free time today thanks to WWDC so only just getting around to sending those now.
 
ACardiganAndAFrown

ACardiganAndAFrown

状元
Got it, thanks. Here's a few quick things:

• Use TTS if no recording: off / Canto overridden
I'm getting TTS audio for my Cantonese headwords still, Mandarin is unaffected by new TTS.

• Apple Cantonese is having problems:
仆你個街!
puk1 nei5 go3 gaai1
Why don't you drop dead!
New Pleco Canto TTS has no issues - if I had to hazard a guess there's something in between 你個 that apple native Canto tts is picking up on but Pleco TTS is trained to miss(?).

• TTS Characters skipped:
Like ⿰月羅 in example sentence for 箩柚, et. al.

• Extra Charcters
IMG_5683.PNG
佢烚吓啲衫
saap6 haa5 di1 saam1
Boil the clothes to sterilize them

Seems like the keoi doesn't belong here.
 
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mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Thanks!

Apple Cantonese thing seems to be on their end - double-checked and no extra characters getting passed to their TTS. Will file a (rather amusing) bug report with them.
 
ACardiganAndAFrown

ACardiganAndAFrown

状元
The sentence below the one I gave you also has problems with Apple Cantonese TTS:

仆街啦你!
puk1 gaai1 laa1 nei5
Why don't you go to hell!

Other sentences seem fine - not sure why.

Also getting a constant "Purchased But Not D/Led" loop with ABC Canto.
 
Shun

Shun

状元
I focused on the new Mandarin TTS voices. (My Cantonese isn't good enough yet..) I couldn't detect any reading errors, and I love the improvement in sound quality/naturalness.

I find the 的 to be pronounced too strongly in the Qiang voice sometimes, as in “我的车", for example. The 的 should sound subordinated to the other syllables, using the same amount of time but with less emphasis. Not sure if you can tweak these things, though.
 
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mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Now out officially, check "Add-ons."

Cantonese purchased-but-not-downloaded loop should be fixed, thanks for that. Good note on 的.
 
M

mongrel

举人
I think I'm due a free copy of the ABC Cantonese dictionary. How do I claim it?

My "reward" is this:
A one *year subscription to the much anticipated Wenlin web-based ABC Cantonese-English Dictionary authored by Robert Bauer with the added bonus of the soon to be released Pleco copy of the Dictionary (estimated release mid 2017).
Valued $100
 
pdwalker

pdwalker

状元
just purchased the new additions.

the new mandarin voices are much better than the apple tts.

and finally, i have a dictionary that explains what '梗窗' is.
 
L

lovepleco

秀才
Agree, the new voices are excellent. One question: It appears those new voices aren't working on the headword entry but instead only for the 'rest' like DICT, SENTS etc. Can this be added to headwords as well?
 
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