Hi Chris Enzweiler,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum, thank you for posting your query here!
While using SSML to control pronunciation, you might encounter inconsistencies, especially with isolated phonemes. For example, the word “would” is pronounced correctly with the IPA phoneme ‘wʊd’. However, isolating the ‘ʊ’ sound might result in it being pronounced like the letter ‘O’ due to the TTS system’s on context for accurate pronunciation.
Example:
XML
<speak version='1.0' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis' xml:lang='en-US'>
<voice name='en-US-AvaNeural'>
<phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="wʊd">would</phoneme>
</voice>
</speak>
This correctly pronounces “would” as expected.
However, isolating the ‘ʊ’ might sound like the letter ‘O’ due to lack of context.
To improve accuracy, try embedding the phoneme within a minimal context
This approach helps the TTS engine produce the desired sound more accurately.
Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.
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