This post was co-authored with Qinying Liao, Sheng Zhao, Gang Wang, Yueying Liu
Neural Text to Speech (Neural TTS), a powerful speech synthesis capability of Cognitive Services on Azure, enables you to convert text to lifelike speech which is close to human-parity. Since its launch, we have seen it widely adopted in a variety of scenarios by many Azure customers, from voice assistants to audio content creation. More and more customers are asking for richer and more diverse choices of synthetic voices for different use cases.
Today, we are excited to announce that Azure Neural TTS has added 51 new voices for a total of 129 neural voices across 54 languages/locales. With this release, we provide at least one male and one female voice for customers to choose in each language/locale. In total, Azure TTS now enables developers to reach millions more people with more than 200 voices available in standard and neural TTS.
What's new
Neural TTS has now been extended to support 51 new voices, which will bring to you the capability to have both male and female voices in each language for your apps. You can hear samples of the voices below, or try them with your own text in our demo.
46 new voices are generally available
In total 46 new voices are released across the 49 locales that are generally available in the Azure data centers/regions that support neural TTS (see the full list of Azure regions here).
|
Locale |
Language |
Gender |
Voice |
Sample audio |
|
ar-EG |
Arabic (Egypt) |
Male |
ShakirNeural |
البركان هو أكثر ما في الطبيعــة إثارة للرهبة |
|
ar-SA |
Arabic (Saudi Arabia) |
Male |
HamedNeural |
الناس مَعادن، تصدأ بالملل، وتتمدد بالأمل، وتنكمش بالألم |
|
bg-BG |
Bulgarian (Bulgaria) |
Male |
BorislavNeural |
Шофьорът задължително трябва да вземе експерт за второ мнение, за да провери дали всички системи на автомобила работят нормално. |
|
ca-ES |
Catalan (Spain) |
Male |
EnricNeural |
Les activitats docents tenen lloc al campus del Poblenou. |
|
ca-ES |
Catalan (Spain) |
Female |
JoanaNeural |
L'artista està considerat com el pintor de les multituds. |
|
cs-CZ |
Czech (Czech) |
Male |
AntoninNeural |
Opravdový zasvěcenec ví, že nejmocnějším tajemstvím je to, které nemá žádný obsah. |
|
da-DK |
Danish (Denmark) |
Male |
JeppeNeural |
61 procent af de kandidatstuderende er kvinder. |
|
de-AT |
German (Austria) |
Male |
JonasNeural |
Das ist das letzte lange Pfingstwochenende für Schülerinnen und Schüler. |
|
de-CH |
German (Switzerland) |
Male |
JanNeural |
Eine Person, die sich bei Brandausbruch im oberen Stock aufgehalten hat, hat sich noch rechtzeitig in Sicherheit bringen können. |
|
el-GR |
Greek (Greece) |
Male |
NestorasNeural |
Συγκλονιστικές εξελίξεις και ανατροπές στα επόμενα επεισόδια . |
|
en-CA |
English (Canada) |
Male |
LiamNeural |
He had held the position since 2010. |
|
en-IE |
English (Ireland) |
Male |
ConnorNeural |
Life is short, think before you talk. |
|
en-IN |
English (India) |
Male |
PrabhatNeural |
Sometimes you can see snow on the mountains. |
|
fi-FI |
Finnish (Finland) |
Male |
HarriNeural |
Yhtiö kertoi loppuvuoden tuloksestaan ennakkotietoja. |
|
fi-FI |
Finnish (Finland) |
Female |
SelmaNeural |
Hevoset ovat uljaita ja nopeita eläimiä. |
|
fr-CH |
French (Switzerland) |
Male |
FabriceNeural |
La Suisse comptera 5,6 millions (12%) de personnes actives en 2050. |
|
he-IL |
Hebrew (Israel) |
Male |
AvriNeural |
הוא אמר שהמספרים מדאיגים בשל עצמם, אבל בכל הישיבות שלנו המסקנה היא שזה סימפטום למשהו רחב יותר. |
|
hi-IN |
Hindi (India) |
Male |
MadhurNeural |
सिद्धार्थ ने भी शहनाज के साथ इस इवेंट की फोटो शेयर की है। |
|
hr-HR |
Croatian (Croatia) |
Male |
SreckoNeural |
Video je pregledan gotovo 70 tisuća puta, a neki od obožavatelja su mu u komentarima pisali kako ih je motivirao. |
|
hu-HU |
Hungarian (Hungary) |
Male |
TamasNeural |
A lakóhelyem nagyon komfortos. |
|
id-ID |
Indonesian (Indonesia) |
Female |
GadisNeural |
Inflasi ringan terjadi apabila kenaikan harga berada di bawah angka 10% setahun. |
|
ms-MY |
Malay (Malaysia) |
Male |
OsmanNeural |
Setiap individu perlu memakai topeng muka ketika berada di luar. |
|
nb-NO |
Norwegian (Bokmål, Norway) |
Male |
FinnNeural |
Jansson forteller at den svenske øya tar imot rundt 8000 besøkende fra Norge årlig. |
|
nb-NO |
Norwegian (Bokmål, Norway) |
Female |
PernilleNeural |
For en fantastisk forestilling! |
|
nl-NL |
Dutch (Netherlands) |
Female |
FennaNeural |
De afstand tussen Rotterdam en Breda is ongeveer 45 km. |
|
nl-NL |
Dutch (Netherlands) |
Male |
MaartenNeural |
Zij heeft haar studie al een tijdje geleden afgerond. |
|
pl-PL |
Polish (Poland) |
Female |
AgnieszkaNeural |
To już nie będzie to samo, będzie drożej. |
|
pl-PL |
Polish (Poland) |
Male |
MarekNeural |
Na wszelki wypadek sprawdź, czy coś cię jednak nie zaskoczy. |
|
pt-PT |
Portuguese (Portugal) |
Male |
DuarteNeural |
Para a aprovação do exame, tenho de ter pelo menos 80% das respostas corretas. |
|
pt-PT |
Portuguese (Portugal) |
Female |
RaquelNeural |
A minha mãe ensinou-me que devo ter respeito por todos, mas principalmente pelos mais velhos. |
|
ro-RO |
Romanian (Romania) |
Male |
EmilNeural |
Actul normativ se axează pe instituirea de măsuri active, 41,5 % din salariul de bază la revenirea din șomaj tehnic. |
|
ru-RU |
Russian (Russia) |
Male |
DmitryNeural |
Ранее посольство требовало от агентства опровержения статьи о количестве больничных коек в России. |
|
ru-RU |
Russian (Russia) |
Female |
SvetlanaNeural |
Изменений в организме людей, попробовавших еду без приправ, не произошло. |
|
sk-SK |
Slovak (Slovakia) |
Male |
LukasNeural |
Zápis 45 % je v skutočnosti iba skratka pre zlomok. |
|
sl-SI |
Slovenian (Slovenia) |
Male |
RokNeural |
Zloraba bonov in dvigovanje cen turističnih storitev je nesprejemljivo ravnanje. |
|
sv-SE |
Swedish (Sweden) |
Male |
MattiasNeural |
Båda lagen bjöd på riktigt bra hockey och skapade flera riktigt bra målchanser. |
|
sv-SE |
Swedish (Sweden) |
Female |
SofieNeural |
Det fanns ingen trafik runt torget. |
|
ta-IN |
Tamil (India) |
Male |
ValluvarNeural |
எவ்வளவு அருமையான பாடல் அது! |
|
te-IN |
Telugu (India) |
Male |
MohanNeural |
అబ్బ, ఎంత పెద్ద భవనమో! |
|
th-TH |
Thai (Thailand) |
Male |
NiwatNeural |
ธุรกิจขายอาหารเป็นธุรกิจที่ได้รับความนิยมมากที่สุด |
|
tr-TR |
Turkish (Turkey) |
Male |
AhmetNeural |
Sosyal mesafeye büyük ölçüde riayet eden çocuklar, başta mahalle parkları olmak üzere sahiller ve oyun parklarında enerji attı. |
|
vi-VN |
Vietnamese (Vietnam) |
Male |
NamMinhNeural |
Nhiệt độ hiện tại ở thành phố Hồ Chí Minh là 38 độ C. |
|
zh-HK |
Chinese (Cantonese, Traditional) |
Female |
HiuMaanNeural |
抗疫舉措成為安全重啟經濟的重要一環。 |
|
zh-HK |
Chinese (Cantonese, Traditional) |
Male |
WanLungNeural |
隨着疫情緩和，愈來愈多人回到辦公室上班，但是很多人仍想留在家中工作（work from home）。 |
|
zh-TW |
Chinese (Taiwanese Mandarin) |
Female |
HsiaoChenNeural |
賭博的勝率應該不到50%。 |
|
zh-TW |
Chinese (Taiwanese Mandarin) |
Male |
YunJheNeural |
台北車站大廳能不能坐，連日引發正反意見。 |
5 new voices are in public preview
We have also added 5 male voices in the 5 low-resource languages that have been supported since November. These voices are available in public preview in three Azure regions: EastUS, SouthEastAsia and WestEurope.
Hear the samples below:
|
Locale |
Language |
Gender |
Voice Name |
Sample audio |
|
et-EE |
Estonian (Estonia) |
Male |
KertNeural |
Ametlikku meetodit sellise pettuse avastamiseks ei olegi olemas. |
|
ga-IE |
Irish (Ireland) |
Male |
ColmNeural |
Ritheadh próiseas comhairliúcháin faoin scéal sa bhfómhar. |
|
lt-LT |
Lithuanian (Lithuania) |
Male |
LeonasNeural |
Aišku, anksčiau ar vėliau paaiškės tos priežastys. |
|
lv-LV |
Latvian (Latvia) |
Male |
NilsNeural |
Aizvadīto gadu uzņēmums noslēdzis ar 6,3 miljonu eiro zaudējumiem. |
|
mt-MT |
Maltese (Malta) |
Male |
JosephNeural |
Anki tfajjel tal-primarja jaf li l-popolazzjoni tikber fejn hemm il-prosperità. |
With this release, we now support a total of 129 neural voices across 54 languages/locales. In addition, over 70 standard voices are available in 49 languages/locales. Visit Language support - Speech service - Azure Cognitive Services | Microsoft Docs for the full language and voice list.
Continuous voice quality improvement
In general, Neural TTS can convert text to lifelike speech, however there are nuances that can always be improved. For example, we have customers who have requested the ability to support a scenario where Katja, our de-DE neural voice, can pronounce English words in the context of a German sentence. This was valuable feedback, and we anticipate a similar need across languages.
For German, we observed that our users prefer the voice to handle an English word/phrase as close as the native English pronunciation. To enable a voice model to speak English as a second language, it is normally required that we collect the speech data of the same speaker speaking English besides his/her native language. This is a big challenge as we do not have sufficient multi-language speech data from our German voice talents. By leveraging cross-lingual capability of UNI-TTS, we are able to generate more English pronunciation data with the transferred voice from our German voice talent. Such data is used to improve the quality of the English word/phrase pronunciations for the German Katja voice, so Katja can pronounce English words in a more natural way.
The CMOS metric is used to measure the improvement of the English word pronunciation for Katja.
This improvement has now been released to the Azure Neural TTS service for Katja. Moving forward, we’ll extend this capability to support more languages.
Tell us your experience!
By offering more voices across more languages and locales, we anticipate developers across the world will be able to build applications that change experiences for millions. Whether you’re building a voice-enabled chatbot or IoT device, an IVR solution, adding read-aloud features to your app, converting e-books to audio books, or even adding Speech to a translation app, you can make all these experiences natural sounding and fun with Neural TTS.
Let us know how you are using or plan to use Neural TTS voices in this form. If you prefer, you can also contact us at mstts [at] microsoft.com. We look forward to hearing your experience and developing more compelling services together with you for the developers around the world.
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