How a voice can make a difference

[woozlification]

I'm interested in how the different voices of the speakers on the courses make me more or less motivated. For example, the Spanish one is very happy-sounding, and the German one has a very friendly voice, and that makes me feel good, learning the language. On one course, though, the main voice sounds irritable, like the person is in a bad mood, and I'm surprised how much this puts me off. This is not how the language has to be spoken, as I have listened to the radio in the language a bit and it wasn't like that at all. I suppose different people find different voices pleasant to hear or not, but if you are going to spend hours listening to a voice, it's nice if you find one that you feel good listening to. A big thank-you to all the speakers on the courses, and especially to those who sound positive and friendly- sitting for hours recording crazy sentences and still keeping a smile in your voice must be some challenge :-)

[tiramisues]

Most of the voices (except on some courses like Irish and Hebrew) actually use TTS technology. Meaning text-to-speech. It's not a person reading the sentences, but the computer reading the text. :)

May I ask which course has the voice you don't like so much?

[woozlification]

That's amazing. I didn't realise that. Thanks for sharing that. Presumably the computer software has been programmed by someone with a real voice, and that must at some point have taken someone a long time. I wonder if it is convincing to a native speaker. I would think that the intonation and timing would be the most tricky parts of that to get right.

I don't want to mention a particular course, in case it's a real person, and it would just be my opinion. I don't want to prejudice anybody towards it just because I find a particular voice unfriendly, myself!

[JeskeH]

I especially find it off-putting if there is no audio at all... Hope they'll get a voice for the Chinese course!

[Woof.]

They have to. Chinese tones are said to be pretty hard.

Which courses have no audio (besides Swahili)?

[CalvinJohnWu]

You are a very nice person.