How Text-to-Speech Technology Assists Non-Native Speakers​

For a non-native speaker, expressing their thoughts to someone who does not speak the language can be a nightmare. Or, you might want to read a popular book but cannot understand the actual essence because it is not in your mother tongue. That is where text-to-speech for non-native speakers steps in.

Text-to-speech can create voiceovers, help overcome language barriers, and assist you in actively learning new languages. This article discusses how text-to-speech helps non-native speakers improve communication skills. You will also learn ways to integrate them into your language practice and digital learning.

Benefits of Text-to-Speech for Non-Native Speakers

Here are the benefits of using tools with text-to-speech for non-native speakers:

1. Improving Pronunciation and Speech Clarity: You can start improving pronunciation with TTS technology. Over time, you will be able to speak more clearly.
2. Enhancing Listening Skills: Practicing with read-aloud clips helps you understand accents over time just by listening.
3. Multilingual Support for Diverse Learners: Listening to text-to-speech voiceovers regularly helps you understand the unique flow of that language.
4. Encouraging Consistent Practice: You can conveniently listen to text-to-speech audio clips whenever. This makes regular practice easier even in a time crunch.
5. Accessibility for language learning: Text-to-speech can turn texts into voiceovers in multiple languages. This makes learning more accessible.

Improving Pronunciation and Speech Clarity

You may often mispronounce words because you only learned them from reading. Sure, books can enrich our vocabulary. However, they are not the best tools for learning the exact sounds of those words. You must hear new words to say them properly. Improving pronunciation with TTS technology is easy.

You can convert books and reading materials into voiceovers. This will help you model your speech to how certain words are supposed to be spoken. Being unconfident about how to say new words often compromises speech clarity. You may just mumble words to avoid embarrassment. Practicing languages with text-to-speech will improve your speaking skills over time. It boosts confidence, increasing speech clarity for language learners.

Enhancing Listening Skills

Listening and comprehending a non-native language is difficult. While you can add subtitles to video resources, live lectures will still be a problem. Such reliance on textual content is a big roadblock to holistic learning. If you do not try to overcome it now, you may never get comfortable with the language you are trying to learn.

Text-to-speech tools can read aloud texts in a natural cadence. If you practice listening to the voiceovers regularly, your language comprehension will improve. You will learn accurate pronunciation and flow. With time, you will understand the language just like a native speaker without any assistance from subtitles.

Multilingual Support for Diverse Learners

A research paper by NIH noted that knowing more than one language offers better opportunities for social interaction and increases intercultural understanding. Plus, the pride of knowing multiple languages is something everyone wants. However, fluency comes with consistent practice.

You will have to listen to how the language is spoken — and it is not always possible to learn it from native speakers. Thanks to multilingual text-to-speech tools, diverse learners can now easily teach themselves multiple languages. You can listen to read-aloud clips and correct pronunciations, pauses, and overall flow.

Encouraging Consistent Practice

People who have tried to learn a new language often stop practicing once they struggle with fluency. If the experience is not accessible and immersive enough, it is easy to fall through. Remember, languages are muscle memory. You can only learn it through constant repetition. However, once you stop practicing, you will forget whatever you learned.

Language learning with text-to-speech becomes more engaging. It is like having a friend in the vicinity who can properly speak the language you are trying to learn. You can turn text materials into voiceover clips and listen to them at leisure. You can practice with them while doing chores and even during commutes.

Such convenience makes language learning an easy and fun experience, encouraging learners to keep at it regularly.

Accessibility for Language Learning

Learners often find it difficult to absorb knowledge from diverse sources because they do not know the language well. This creates a big accessibility issue, especially for non-native English speakers. In a world that is going increasingly global every day, such roadblocks are not something you should face.

With the right text-to-speech tools, you will not have to. If you do not know the language of a material, you can just transform it into an audio clip of your native language. This makes educational resources more accessible and supports a complete and enriching learning process.

Applications of TTS in Language Learning

Here are some more detailed ways of using TTS for language practice:

1. Vocabulary Building: Text-to-speech tools help you understand the context and application of new words and remember well.
2. Practicing Conversations: You can create multi-speaker dialogs that help you understand and practice proper conversational tones.
3. Learning on the Go: People often give up on language practice because they cannot make time for it. Audio clips make learning convenient as you can listen and practice during your commute or chores.
4. Integrating TTS into Language Classrooms: You can share voiceover clips of lectures. It helps non-native speakers and students with disabilities.

Vocabulary Building

You may spend hours working on your grammar while learning a foreign language. However, building a rich vocabulary is just as important if you want to be proficient in that language. A diverse vocabulary shows your comfort with the language.

In fact, in one of the papers, researcher Rie Koizumi noted, “…out of five factors (i.e., accent, comprehension, fluency, grammar, and vocabulary), vocabulary was the only one that affected level differences between learners at novice and intermediate levels.”

Knowing the basic meaning of words is not enough for vocabulary building. You must know their application according to context. With text-to-speech voiceovers, you can hear new words in context. This will help you remember and apply them better in real-life conversations.

Practicing Conversations

You must practice speaking a language every day to become fluent in it. But you may not always have the time or people to practice with. With text-to-speech tools, there is no need to find a native speaker to practice with. It lets you create voiceovers with multiple speakers in your desired language. You can simulate dialogs, play audio clips, and listen and practice conversations easily. It also makes identifying mistakes much easier.

Learning on the Go

Learning a language may not fall into your strict academic or work routine. So, finding time to practice is a problem sometimes. Your progress may suffer if you wait for the weekend to study the language. Text-to-speech for non-native speakers lets you download the audio clips to your phone and other devices. You can put on your headphones and practice the language while multitasking.

Integrating TTS into Language Classrooms

Bringing text-to-speech in classrooms makes learning more accessible. The experience becomes more inclusive for students from different cultural backgrounds and learning disabilities. Professors can turn lectures into voiceover audio clips and send them in different languages.

This will help non-native speakers consume the lessons easily. It engages two senses (sight and hearing) at the same time. This helps learners with attention deficit and neurodivergence concentration better as well. Proper pronunciation and contextual clarity also make the learning experience more impactful and fulfilling.

How Speaktor Helps Non-Native Speakers

Text-to-speech makes language learning more engaging. It also helps educators and students overcome linguistic differences and learning disabilities. However, you need the right tool that supports multiple languages, generates accurate results, and is easy to use. One such platform is Speaktor. Here are some ways it can help non-native speakers:

Natural-Sounding Voices for Accurate Practice

Regular text-to-speech tools often generate audio clips that sound robotic or inaccurate. This hampers the learning process. Speaktor, however, creates lifelike voiceovers for your texts, no matter how complicated the script is. You can choose realistic AI voice options to match the theme. That way, you will hear the most authentic and precise pronunciations and conversational flow according to the languages.

Multilingual Features

Speaktor supports over 50 languages. You can upload your file, and choose your desired language. The tool will create realistic and precise voiceover clips in seconds. That way, you can practice multiple languages with the same tool and upgrade your conversational skills.

Easy Integration with Learning Tools

Speaktor has two sister tools — Eskritor and Transkriptor. You can generate learning modules with the former and turn your spoken lectures into textual resources with the latter. If you are an educator, sharing resources in every format will make the learning experience more impactful.

Cost-Effective Language Support

You do not need to spend a lot of money to learn new languages or understand your lessons properly. Speaktor offers affordable plans, making language support accessible for students and professionals.

Accessibility and Inclusivity

Speaktor is designed to make learning accessible and inclusive for people from all regions and students with learning disabilities. People with visual impairments can easily consume resources through text-to-speech clips. Students can translate lectures into their native language and absorb lessons properly.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using Speaktor for Language Learning

Turning texts into audio with Speaktor is as easy as it gets. Here are the steps:

Step 1: Upload Your Text or Lesson Material

You need to log in to your Speaktor account and click on the “Read Aloud” box on the dashboard. If you want to create dialogs with multiple speakers, you can click on the “Multi-Speaker Voiceovers with Ease” box. The popup will prompt you to upload the text file in PDF, TXT, or DOCX format.

Step 2: Select Your Language and Voice

Then you can select your desired language and audio voice. If you hover over the characters, you can click the play button and test the voice before choosing it. Once done, you need to click on the purple “Read Aloud” button.

Step 3: Practice Pronunciation and Listening

Speaktor will take about 3 to 4 seconds to generate the clip. Then you can hit the play button, listen, and practice accurate pronunciation.

Step 4: Save and Replay for Consistent Practice

You should save the voiceover clip to replay and practice later. You can click on the download button and save it in WAV, MP3, WAV+SRT, and MP3+SRT formats. You can also download the text file in Word or TXT format.

Step 5: Integrate Speaktor into Study Routines

For better learning, you should listen to the audio clips throughout the day whenever you find time. Speaking with the voiceover will improve your pronunciation and speaking skills over time.

Conclusion: TTS as a Language Learning Ally

There is no lack of educational applications of TTS for non-native speakers. Plus, it offers an alternative for students with learning disabilities to understand lessons better. Allied Market Research found that academic institutions are among the top users of text-to-speech technology.

Speaktor will help you with accurate and multilingual voiceovers of your uploaded texts. You can keep the files on your phones or access them directly from the Speaktor dashboard. It will remove the roadblocks. All you need to do is integrate language learning into your daily routine. Try Speaktor for free today and make language learning fun, convenient, and effective!