L&H TruVoice’s Pronunciation Manager

The Pronunciation Manager allows a user to correct mispronounced words, or specify preferred pronunciation for certain words.

When an instance of the TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine is created, it looks for the file name of the user-defined dictionary in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\L&H\TruVoice\TextToSpeech\Dictionary.  For the American English version, the file name is in the value named ENGLISH.  If the user-defined dictionary is located successfully, it will be loaded into memory.  If the TruVoice engine can’t locate the user-defined dictionary, it will try to locate a default dictionary in the same directory as the engine DLL.  For the English version, the default dictionary name is english.dic.  If the default dictionary is located successfully, it will be loaded into memory. Otherwise there will be no entries in the dictionary in memory when the L&H TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine starts up.

When the Pronunciation Manager is invoked, the dictionary is reloaded so that any changes to the dictionary file will be reflected in the dictionary in memory.  If any changes have been made to the dictionary in memory, the dictionary in the memory will be written to the dictionary file when the Pronunciation Manager dialog box closes.  The first time that you save a dictionary, you will need to specify its file name and location.  You may use the default provided, in which case it is shared among users who do not specify their own dictionaries; or you may specify your own dictionary which you manage yourself.

The L&H TruVoice Pronunciation Manager supports the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).  If there is a supported IPA font available on the system, you can see the IPA symbols displayed below the L&H TruVoice phonetic symbols.  If an IPA font is on the system, you may also choose from a list of supported IPA symbols to aid you in customizing the pronunciation of words.  To see a list of the phonetic symbols supported by L&H TruVoice, click on the Examples button in the Pronunciation Manager dialog box.  You can add individual symbols to your pronunciation, either by double clicking on a symbol, or by selecting a symbol and then clicking the Insert button.  Click the Close button to return to the Pronunciation Manager.  The symbols that you selected will be displayed in the Pronunciation box.

N.B. There is currently a 5000 word limit for the user-defined dictionary.


Click this to close the Pronunciation Manager and save any changes to the dictionary file.


Enter the word to be added.  Press ENTER or click the speak button next to edit box to listen to the pronunciation.  The phoneme string will appear in the Pronunciation edit box.


Click this to listen to pronunciation of word in Word edit box. The phoneme string will appear in the Pronunciation edit box.


Enter an alternate word that sounds like the current word. Press ENTER or click the speak button next to edit box to listen to the pronunciation.  The phoneme string will appear in the Pronunciation edit box.


Click this to listen to pronunciation of word in Sounds Like edit box. The phoneme string will appear in the Pronunciation edit box.


Enter or edit phoneme string for current word. Press ENTER or click the speak button next to edit box to listen to the pronunciation


Click this to listen to pronunciation of phoneme string in Pronunciation edit box.


Click this to display a table of valid phonemes, with examples.


Click this to clear the Word, Sounds Like and Pronunciation edit boxes.


Click this to add the current word and its pronunciation to the copy of the dictionary in the memory.


Click this to display a list of words currently in the dictionary.


Click this to get help for the Pronunciation Manager.


Click this to close the Advanced Controls dialog box.


Click this to reset the speed, pitch and volume to their default values.


Adjusts the speed of the computer voice.  The range is from 50 to 250 words per minute.


Read-only display of current speed of the computer voice in words per minute.


Adjusts the pitch of the computer voice.


Adjusts the volume of the computer voice.


Displays the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) equivalent for the above pronunciation (if an IPA font is available on the system)