[TonyBonJovi]

Hello everyone.

I am desperately trying to find out if a mac can understand and 'talk' German. I originally used OS 9.2 and 'simple text', to speak a few sentences in english using Fred, Victoria high quality ...etc . I would now like to do the same thing but in German. Please can someone tell me if this is possible and if so how. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks.

Tony.

[Big Mac]

I think you mean MacInTalk Pro, which is the official name for Apple's speech engine, as opposed to AppleTalk, which is Apple's networking protocol. I have no idea how good German pronunciation would be and whether or not Apple did any work to internationalize the feature. I presume that the Mac speaks German phrases phonetically. Why not just try it and see if you like the output?

[rjenkinson]

appletalk is an old networking protocol. what you're looking for is called macintalk.

-r.

[TETENAL]

http://www.cepstral.com/cgi-bin/downloads

[Diggory Laycock]

Try WordService.service from http://www.devon-technologies.com/pr...e/freeware.php

[analogika]

Macintalk, as of Panther, can only speak German if you spell it according to English phonetics.

Duss vay rah ine egg sempel.

I have no idea whether the advanced speech functions in Tiger (OS X 10.4) - which look really great - will FINALLY support other languages. I have vision-impaired friends who are stuck on Windows 98 because that is the only OS that supports their ****ed-up screen-reading software.

[Big Mac]

Originally posted by analogika:
Macintalk, as of Panther, can only speak German if you spell it according to English phonetics.

Duss vay rah ine egg sempel.

I have no idea whether the advanced speech functions in Tiger (OS X 10.4) - which look really great - will FINALLY support other languages. I have vision-impaired friends who are stuck on Windows 98 because that is the only OS that supports their ****ed-up screen-reading software.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about Tiger's advances in that area. . .

[Diggory Laycock]

<grrrr> - double post badness.

[Geobunny]

Not sure if this points to anything, it's something I spotted when reading the page about VoiceOver on Apple's OS X web site.

Paragraph 5, taken from http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/voiceover/

Fully integrated and extraordinarily reliable, VoiceOver eliminates the need for an expensive screen reader. Use your savings to purchase compatible applications, adaptive input devices, additional voices or even a new Mac — and still have change left over

Wonder if this suggests that Apple will sell different/foreign voices, or provide an SDK for other developers to do so.

[Big Mac]

Originally posted by Geobunny:
Not sure if this points to anything, it's something I spotted when reading the page about VoiceOver on Apple's OS X web site.

Paragraph 5, taken from http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/voiceover/


Wonder if this suggests that Apple will sell different/foreign voices, or provide an SDK for other developers to do so.

You're definitely on to something there, Geo. SJ voiced his dissatisfaction years ago with the current set of voices, so it's entirely possible that we will see new voices soon.

[Hugi]

I would love to see AppleTalk based on German, sounds like it would make a much more interesting basis for a protocol than those rather boring datagram packets.

"drucken Sie Sie der dumme Drucker, schnell!"

[Geobunny]

Originally posted by Hugi:
I would love to see AppleTalk based on German, sounds like it would make a much more interesting basis for a protocol than those rather boring datagram packets.

"drucken Sie Sie der dumme Drucker, schnell!"

LOL!

[moreno]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
You're definitely on to something there, Geo. SJ voiced his dissatisfaction years ago with the current set of voices, so it's entirely possible that we will see new voices soon.

seems to be the same voices as panther. see voiceover video @ apple.

[Big Mac]

Yes, Moreno, currently there is no indication that there are new voices from the demos shown, but go back and read geobunny's post about the Apple blurb indicating additional voices will be available for purchase.

[TETENAL]

Additional voices are available for purchase already.

[Millennium]

Voices are only part of the solution, though; they're important, but without a different set of pronunciation rules they don't give you anything but accented English.

The only non-English language I've ever seen MacinTalk support is Mexican Spanish, and that was a very long time ago. However, it is not inconceivable that Apple might revisit this and add support for more languages. I don't remember hearing about them doing this for Tiger, but hey, it could happen.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by analogika

Duss vay rah ine egg sempel.

Reminds me of the days when I tried to find the right spelling to record a text for my answering machine...

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Voices are only part of the solution, though; they're important, but without a different set of pronunciation rules they don't give you anything but accented English.

Would you first please download a German, French or Spanish voice from Cepstral before you claim it doesn't work.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Would you first please download a German, French or Spanish voice from Cepstral before you claim it doesn't work.

Do you mean those voices work with Macintalk? Are they free?

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by badidea

Do you mean those voices work with Macintalk?

Yes, they do.

Are they free?

No, but you can download and try them.