Text-To-Speech in Hebrew sometimes pronounces words that don't even exist in the vocabulary

yjshr1 yjshr1 56

Hi,
Text-To-Speech in Hebrew sometimes pronounces words that don't even exist in the vocabulary.
Can you please report a bug to the software team so they will check if the words' pronouncing exists in the vocabulary (if they don't know from the AI model) before pronouncing them.
In Hebrew there are dots in the words that assist to pronounce the word (unique for Hebrew).
so :
חדשנוּת
חדשנוֹת
are two different pronouncings
because of the dot's location as you can see.
so the text-to-speech API sometimes get as input the word:

חדשנות (without a dot )

and it reads it as חדשנוֹת but there is no word like this in Hebrew . ( it need to read it as חדשנוּת)

Thanks

romungi-MSFT 42,286 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-11-21T07:37:07.103+00:00

@yjshr1 yjshr1 Thanks for posting the feedback. We have forwarded the same internally to the team for review.
Dongxu Han 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2022-12-09T03:31:43.69+00:00

@yjshr1 yjshr1
I tried 3 words you mentioned on https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/cognitive-services/text-to-speech/
חדשנות
חדשנוּת
חדשנוֹת

The pronunciations are
חדשנות x a d - sh a - n u1 t
חדשנוּת x a d - sh a - n u1 t
חדשנוֹת x a d - sh a - n o1 t

The pronunciation of חדשנות is the same as חדשנוּת
We didn't find the issue you mentioned.
Could you help check again or provide more details?
yjshr1 yjshr1 56 Reputation points

2022-12-12T20:09:22.43+00:00

Hi,
here is an example:
"חבר הכנסת יריב לוין ביקש גיבוי מנתניהו וסורב"

the generated speech for the last word is : וסורב ( ve-so-rev) but there is no pronouncing of it in Hebrew.

it should be (ve-so-rav) like (וסוֹרַב)

@Dongxu Han
Dongxu Han 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2022-12-13T02:13:42.82+00:00

let me see..
yjshr1 yjshr1 56 Reputation points

2022-12-31T15:49:39.13+00:00

@Dongxu Han any update?
Dongxu Han 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2023-01-05T06:33:00.277+00:00

@yjshr1 yjshr1
Thanks for your patience.

We figured out these errors are from model prediction.
We will not fix this issued sentence case by case and we are trying to summarize issue patterns to improve quality.

Currently we haven't collected enough similar issued sentences, so we can't locate the issue pattern.
It's appreciated if you can find some more similar issue cases or summarized this issue pattern, which can accelerate our fixing speed.
yjshr1 yjshr1 56 Reputation points

2023-01-06T09:11:20.573+00:00

@Dongxu Han
another example:

the word מופו
the bot reads it as מוֹפוֹ (the dot that tell us the pronouncing of the word is above the letter "ו" as you can see)
the bot reads it as (mo-po) but there is not pronouncing like that in Hebrew.
it should read it as מוּפוּ ( moo-poo) (the dot that tell us the pronouncing of the word is beside the letter "ו" as you can see)
yjshr1 yjshr1 56 Reputation points

2023-01-07T16:30:02.243+00:00

another example:
@Dongxu Han
the word אבשר
the bot reads it as אֲבַשָׁר (the dot that tell us the pronouncing of the word is above the letter "ש" in right side as you can see)
the bot reads it as (av-shar) but there is not pronouncing like that in Hebrew.
it should read it as אֲבַשֵׂר ( ava-ser) (the dot that tell us the pronouncing of the word is above the letter "ש" in left side as you can see)

In case your model does not recognized the word - Please check the word in the vocabulary before decide the pronouncing yourself
yjshr1 yjshr1 56 Reputation points

2023-01-15T18:58:25.0466667+00:00

@Dongxu Han

another example:

מחזק ומרגש: חיזקי טורנהיים ניחם את המשפחה שבנם נהרג .

the word מחזק
the bot reads it as (me-a-hzek) but there is not pronouncing like that in Hebrew.
it should read it as ( me-hazek)

In case your model does not recognized the word - Please check the word in the vocabulary before decide the pronouncing yourself
yjshr1 yjshr1 56 Reputation points

2023-01-16T08:28:37.2366667+00:00

@Dongxu Han

another example:

צ'ק בנקאי על סך מיליון שקלים שנאבד בתחנת ירושלים יצחק נבון.

the word שנאבד
the bot reads it as (sh-e-ne-ebed) but there is not pronouncing like that in Hebrew.
it should read it as ( sh-e-nevad)

In case your model does not recognized the word - Please check the word in the vocabulary before decide the pronouncing yourself