[Wikipedia-l] Re: text to voice; learning languages

[Steve Vertigum]

--- "Merritt L. Perkins" <mlperkins3 at juno.com> wrote:
> 1. Instead of reading an Encyclopedia article from
> the screen would it be
> nice to be able to lean back and have it read. to
> you by a synthetic
> voice? I believe that such programs already exist.
> Would anything need to
> be done to the articles so that such programs would
> work?.

They are available in the plenty. Ive never used them
-- Dragon or other TTS software before -- maybe
someone else knows a good prog.

> . My computer has such a text to voice program in
> Dragon
> NaturallySpeaking 7 but it does not want to work for
> me. Perhaps it is
> not compatible with XP.

Its a good guess, but often there are simple audio
problems at work. Do a check of all your audio
settings/wires and make sure that no other audio prog
is running.

> 2. While it would not be part of Wikipedia would
> free lessons in foreign
> languages be a good idea? Once you get started you
> need to get practice
> using the language and Encyclopedia articles might
> furnish such practice.
> Is anybody interested?
> Just daydreaming.
> Merritt L. Perkins

I like this idea -- all we have now is the "Common
phrases" (in various languages ?) page. Search 'common
phrases'

This could be a good starting point and blossom from
there. Aslo, I understand that there are some efforts
to write books on Wikibooks.org that are language
instruction oriented.

Hows your wikiing going, Merritt? Do you have a login?
~S~




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