Emphasis, Pauses, Pronunciations
      Back to home
      1. Help Center
      2. Pronunciation
      3. Emphasis, Pauses, Pronunciations

      Pronunciation Best Practices

      Our voice model is pretty good at predicting pronunciation, but a few things can trip it up: unfamiliar or rare nouns (i.e., company names, words borrowed from other languages, or specialized terminology), homonyms (read vs. read), acronyms, and numbers. With the following best practices, you can get words spoken just the way you want. 

      Acronyms Pronunciation

      Acronyms as words

      For an acronym as a word, try spelling the word the way it sounds.

      Example: FEMA → "feema" or "::FEE-ma::"

      Acronyms as individual letters

      If you want an acronym to be pronounced letter by letter, add spaces or dashes between them or use a Respelling for better control.

      Example: TBD →​ "T.B.D." or  "T-B-D" or "::TEE-BEE-DEE::"

      If using a Respelling, stressing the first and last syllables only tends to produce better results.

      Example: ASAP →​ "AY-ehs-ay-PEE"

      Word Pronunciation

      When the voice avatar needs help predicting a word or text, you can provide it with a replacement spelling to get the correct pronunciation. You can also store your replacements to take advantage of reusing them over and over again. 

      Use a Respelling suggestion

      Use the Respelling suggestions feature, which lets you add accurate Respelling replacements for common, industry-specific, uncommon, and complex words, among others you'd find in the Oxford dictionary. Simply click on the open book icon when adding a new replacement in Studio.

      Create a phonetic Respelling

      Use Respellings as a unique way to format a word by breaking down each syllable and which syllables should be emphasized.

      Example: Triiodothyronine → "try-yuh-uh-doo-THY-ruh-neen"

      Create a replacement text 

      Create a Replacement to substitute a word, term, or phrase with an alternative way of spelling when the pronunciation of a word, term, or phrase is otherwise ambiguous:

      Example: 1099-MISC, tax form

      • Avatars will vocalize as “ten ninety-nine M I S C”
      • Add a Replacement so Avatars will always say “ten ninety-nine Miscellaneous”

        Emphasize a word or phrase

        Add quotation marks ("") around a word or phrase to direct the voice avatar to pay particular attention. Learn how to get the right inflection.