[kwhitefoot]

> You can use it for free at Talkabl.com

I picked French and clicked the "Listen to the lesson" button. But what I got was my computer speaking French words as though they were English. Even my French accent, almost fifty years after failing my high school French exams, is better.

:-)

Can anyone tell me how to make it speak French French instead of Franglais? Apart from that it looks interesting.

[giorgosera]

Hey :) hahaha indeed the text to speech feature might sound unnatural sometimes. I use the Web Speech API but unfortunately it doesn't work on all browsers seamlessly.

Are you using it on mobile? If yes and your device is a Samsung one please check that you are using Google's TTS engine and not Samsung's.

"You can pick which one by going to the Settings app, then Controls->Language and input->Text-to-speech options. Select the gear icon next to Google Text-to-speech Engine, then under Language you can update the exact locale you want to use. If you select "Install voice data" you can even select from a sample of different voices for some locales. You need to restart the device after changing this setting for it to take effect."

Let me know if you got it working. You can also switch browser to check if it works on a different one. I really wish Web speech API was more consistent.

[kwhitefoot]

I had to install the French voice from Microsoft. But Firefox still spoke English even when I chose French in the Windows Speech Settings. It works in Microsoft Edge but there is a different problem there: it won't stop when I hit the pause button.

[giorgosera]

thanks for sharing! Cross-browser compatibility for the web speech API is really an issue. Unfortunately, different browsers behave differently (and not in a predictable way).

I'll have a look at this though. Thanks for sharing.

[kwhitefoot]

I was using it in Firefox 81.0, 64 bit on Windows 10.