Guide to Respellings

Respellings allow you to give precise pronunciation instructions to the voices to get the correct pronunciation every time. 

In this article:

What are Respellings?

How does it work?

What's new with Respellings?

Respellings Punctuation Rules

Reference Charts

Respellings for Acronyms

Respellings Examples

Common Respelling Errors

What are Respellings?

Respellings lets you format a word within the Studio text editor that tells the AI exactly what sound each syllable should make—and which syllables should be emphasized.

How does it work?

Without Respellings, you had to play with phonetic spellings.

With Respellings,  you can now give the AI specific cues to help shape its predictions. 

What’s new with Respellings?

Our next model, currently labeled Beta, introduces two major changes to Respellings.

• Each respelling must be associated with an original word. To help the transition, you will now be prompted to add your original word for any respellings found in your script.
  
  
• We’ve also introduced a new Respelling toggle feature. 
  • Respellings still work the same, but you don’t need to rely on the double colon format (:: ::) unless you are using a Respelling directly in the Studio editor.
  • In the Studio Editor & Pronunciation Library, you will now see a Respelling toggle that allows you to choose whether to save your Replacement as a replacement text or a true Respelling.
  • Existing Respellings saved in your library will still function, even if you save them in the double colon format (:: ::). 
    
    

Respellings and punctuation rules

When typing into the editor, every Respelling must be contained within two colons, using all lowercase letters except for the emphasized syllable, which must be in all caps.

If you're using the right side rail to enter your Respelling, ensure the "Phonetic Respelling" toggle is turned on.

For example, ::STOO-dee-oh:: for Studio.

1. Type two colons first. 
   
   Our test sentence is "Come visit scenic Saskatchewan!"
   
   So first, you'd type Come visit scenic ::
   
   
   
   
2. Next, spell out the sounds for the first syllable. Come visit scenic ::sask
   
   For vowel sounds like the “a” in ball, or blended sounds like “th” in the, we recommend looking your sound up on the charts below or here. This will help the AI know the exact sound you want.
   
   
   
   
3. Type a dash, then the sound of the second syllable. Come visit scenic ::sask-ach
   
   
4. Repeat this process for each syllable in your word. Come visit scenic ::sask-ach-oo-wehn
   
   
5. When you have finished your final syllable, type two colons instead of adding another dash to let the AI know this is the end of your word. Come visit scenic ::sask-ach-oo-wehn::
   
   
6. Put any emphasized syllables in ALL CAPS. Come visit scenic ::sask-ACH-oo-wehn::!
   
   Note: Every word in the English language has at least one emphasized syllable. Some words or acronyms might sound better with two emphasized syllables.
   
   
   
   
7. That’s it! Your word is ready for the AI to pronounce it correctly.
8. Test it out in the Pronunciation section of Studio and listen to the result.

Reference charts

Use the column headers like a fill-in-the-blank sentence:
“To hear “a” as in all, type AW. For example, ::AWL::”

Respellings for acronyms

When you need to Respell an acronym or initialism, where each letter is spoken as itself (ASPCA, LCD, BBC, FBI).

The alphabet would be like this:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ → ::ay-bee-see-dee-ee-ehf-jee-aych-y-jay-kay-ehl-ehm-ehn-oh-pee-kyoo-ar-ehs-tee-yoo-vee-DUH-buhl-yoo-ehks-wy-ZEE::

Respellings of common American English words

Some of the words in this list have more than one emphasized syllable.

Getting a Respellings error?

Your respelling has two colons at the beginning and two colons at the end.

You don’t have any blank spaces inside your Respelling.

Your non-emphasized syllables are all lowercase and your emphasized syllables are all uppercase.

You don’t have anything other than plain letters or dashes inside your respelling

Your spelling has some content inside of it.

The first and last parts of the Respelling have to be letters.

There are no special characters before or after the Respelling.

Still, getting an error?

If you have previously added a Respelling to your Pronunciation Library that includes words with diacritic marks or special characters, the AI may have a hard time pronouncing these respellings.

To avoid this, you may want to uncheck the Pronunciation toggle or remove these entries.