Setting up a Chinese voice
- Record 5 to 15 seconds of a native Mandarin speaker, with the accent your audience expects: mainland, Taiwanese or Singaporean, for example.
- Set the voice's Language to Chinese.
- Test with a number, a measure word and a character with two readings.
The Chinese voice speaks Mandarin. Cantonese and other Chinese languages aren't among the 23, and Chinese text won't be read in them.
Characters with more than one reading
Some characters are read differently depending on the word they're in, and the model has to choose:
| Character | One reading | Another |
|---|---|---|
| 行 | 行走 (xíng) | 银行 (háng) |
| 长 | 长城 (cháng) | 长大 (zhǎng) |
| 重 | 重要 (zhòng) | 重新 (chóng) |
| 乐 | 快乐 (lè) | 音乐 (yuè) |
Common words are usually right. If one comes out wrong, add context, or use a different word with the same meaning. Names are the most likely to be misread; test every character's name early.
Writing Chinese for the voice
- Numbers in characters: 两个人 (two people) but 二月 (February); write the one you mean. Years are read digit by digit: 二〇二六年.
- Money: ¥15.5 → 十五块五 or 十五元五角, depending on how formal it should sound.
- Full-width punctuation: ，。！？. Long lines are split at 。！？, so use them to end sentences.
- One script, one character set: write in Simplified or Traditional characters, and don't mix them in a script.
- Speaker names: when pasting
Name: linedialogue, put an ordinary colon (:) after the name, not the full-width ：, or the line won't be given to that voice. - English words and Latin letters (APP, Wi-Fi) can come out oddly; test them, or write the Chinese term.
A passage to record
这件事我想录了好几个星期，今天终于开始了。这是一个安静的晚上，咖啡已经煮好，我总算有几分钟属于自己的时间。我们来听听效果吧。
"I've wanted to record this for weeks, and today I'm finally starting. It's a quiet evening, the coffee's made, and I finally have a few minutes of my own. Let's hear how it sounds."
A dialogue to test with
小林: 你已经到了吗？我从八点就开始等了。
小王: 不好意思！路上堵得厉害。
小林: 好吧，你来了就好。我们点菜吧？Timing and length
Chinese packs a lot into each character, so a Chinese script can look short next to its English original while taking similar time to say. The script length calculator counts Chinese in characters. For learners' materials, see language learning.