Setting up an Italian voice
- Record 5 to 15 seconds of a native speaker, with the regional colour you want.
- Set the voice's Language to Italian.
- Test with words that have accent marks and double consonants.
Writing Italian for the voice
- Accent marks change words: è / e (is, and), là / la, sì / si, dà / da, papà / papa. Keep every one.
- Optional accents for ambiguous stress: Italian lets you mark stress where it would otherwise be unclear, such as àncora / ancóra (anchor, again) or prìncipi / princìpi (princes, principles). Marking the word that comes out wrong can help.
- Double consonants matter: pala / palla, caro / carro, sete / sette, nono / nonno. A typo changes the word and its sound.
- Words that differ only in an unwritten vowel, like pesca (peach or fishing), are read from context; rephrase if the wrong one comes out.
- Numbers and dates: ventuno, duemilaventisei, il tre marzo, alle nove e mezza. Ordinals: 1° → primo.
- Abbreviations: Sig. → signor, Dott. → dottor, ecc. → eccetera, pag. → pagina.
A passage to record
Erano settimane che volevo registrarlo, quindi eccoci. È una sera tranquilla, il caffè è pronto e finalmente ho
qualche minuto per me. Vediamo come suona.
"I'd been meaning to record this for weeks, so here we are. It's a quiet evening, the coffee's ready and I finally have a few minutes to myself. Let's see how it sounds."
A dialogue to test with
Giulia: Sei già arrivato? Ti aspetto dalle otto.
Marco: Scusa! C'era un traffico pazzesco.
Giulia: Vabbè, adesso sei qui. Ordiniamo?Names and borrowed words
An Italian voice reads foreign names the Italian way, so Hughes or Chelsea may surprise you. Respell them for an Italian reader, or give those lines to a voice in the name's own language. Italian place and family names with unusual stress (Taranto, Modena) are worth a listen on the first take.
For tours and courses
Italian is a common choice for museum guides, travel content and language courses. See audio guides and language learning.