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Mac OS X Lion offers high-quality, multilingual voices

by Matt Tinsley Mar 2nd 2011 at 11:15AM

Since the developer preview release of Mac OS X Lion, we've been able to see in action some of the exciting new features to expect from Apple's new, forthcoming operating system. Today, we've got even more exciting news to share.

AppleInsider is reporting that Mac OS X Lion will feature 53 new high-quality voices with over 40 different dialects to boot. From about a third to over half a gigabyte each in size, the voices sound more human than ever (things have come along way since the early Mac voice from the late 1980s or even Victoria from the 90s), even old Alex from Mac OS X Leopard is put to shame by the new crowd: including American English speaking Jill, Samantha and Tom, Australian English Karen and Lee and the rather British English speaking Daniel, Emily and Serena. There's even a South African English speaking Tessa.

But it's not only English that Mac OS X Lion will be speaking, the new OS will be able to speak Chinese, Saudi Arabian Arabic, French, Italian, Polish and Turkish to name a few, too.

It's reported that the voices will be available for download directly from Apple, so your Mac only speaks the languages you want and need it to.

Click here to listen to some samples provied by AppleInsider



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Since the developer preview release of Mac OS X Lion, we've been able to see in action some of the exciting new features to expect from...
 

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datasmid

Read4Me is a simple program that works with the new voices in Lion Developer preview 3, as well as with third party voices from vendors like Cepstral and Infovox. With save-to-audiobook and the Voice Coach, this app is well-equiped for the Lion update and it is a great writers' tool as it opens MS Word documents and reads them out loud. Localized in 6 languages this will bring the power of MacinTalk to Europe.

http://www.litebeam.net/litebeam/read4me/read4me.html

May 23 2011 at 12:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
datasmid

Read4Me is a simple program that works with the new voices in Lion Developer preview 3, as well as with third party voices from vendors like Cepstral and Infovox. With save-to-audiobook and the Voice Coach, this app is well-equiped for the Lion update and it is a great writers' tool as it opens MS Word documents and reads them out loud. Localized in 6 languages this will bring the power of MacinTalk to Europe.

http://www.litebeam.net/litebeam/read4me/read4me.html

May 23 2011 at 12:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SubGenius

This will hopefully find its way back to iOS 5.

March 02 2011 at 12:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
charly.miranda

Spanish! You forgot, ;)
Finally, only MobileMe and Mac OS X Server are missing...
And TV Shows and we will enjoy the same as you currently enjoy in English

March 02 2011 at 12:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jimbo von Winskinheimer

I believe it says "Saudi Arabian Arabic".

March 02 2011 at 12:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David

They used to have a voice in Mexican Spanish in the 90s and it was very good but then they didn't ship it anymore :/ I hope they bring it back.

March 02 2011 at 12:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Steve

This is America...they need to learn English

March 02 2011 at 11:55 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Steve's comment
kherge

Troll is troll, but I'll educate unwitting readers.

Mac OS X is sold world wide, so of course they will supply voices for languages other than English.

March 02 2011 at 12:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SubGenius

Americans speak Americanese not English

March 02 2011 at 12:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
joe

"Saudi Arabian" is not a language.

March 02 2011 at 11:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to joe's comment
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