Getting the Words Right

Every time I hear a mispronounced word in a narration it bothers me. Recently I was listening to a sports newsletter and heard about the Boston "KELL-ticks." As a hoops fan in Massachusetts, that wasn't going to work.

Text-to-speech engines have come a long way, but they still stumble on certain things: names, acronyms, novel words, etc. So we've developed a pronunciation dictionary for Earmail that sits in front of the narration — a growing list of words we've taught it to say correctly. It also makes judgment calls about words in all-caps: some are supposed to be read as words while some need to be spelled out letter-by-letter, and getting that wrong is just as distracting as a bad pronunciation.

The part we're most proud of is that all Earmail users are part of the continuous improvement process. Every episode gives you a place to report a mispronunciation — tell us what was wrong and we'll fix it durably in the dictionary, for all users.

This might seem like a small thing, but we sweat over these details and they're what make Earmail a better listening experience (and one that continues to improve). If something in your episodes doesn't sound right, send it my way and we'll fix it.

Jeff