Are you trying to improve your Portuguese skills but you don’t know how to achieve it? This tool is for you!
Portuguese owes much of its popularity (as the second most spoken Romance language after Spanish) to its status as the official language of Brazil, where it was spoken by 187 million people in the early twenty-first century. More than 10 million people speak the language in Portugal, the language’s birthplace.
Moreover, there are about 8 million Portuguese speakers in Africa, according to estimates (Angola, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe). In the United States, over 678,000 people speak Portuguese, with considerable groups in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
On the other hand, Brazilian Portuguese differs from European Portuguese in a number of ways, including sound changes and differences in verb conjugation and syntax; for example, object pronouns appear before the verb in Brazilian Portuguese, as they do in Spanish, but after the verb in standard Portuguese.
So, if you want to learn more about the different Portuguese dialects, you will need to try some text-to-speech tools. This is an application that uses assistive technology to transform any text or document into audio. If you have a script or novel that you’d like to hear or read in Portuguese voices, this technology can help.
Nevertheless, finding a reliable TTS that can help you enhance your Portuguese skills might be challenging because not all of these applications work in the same manner. Others have more voices than others, and some, among other things, offer more editing choices. It all depends on what you want to accomplish and how you want to present your audio.
But don’t be concerned! One of the most extensive TTS tools currently available can be found here: Woord.
Why Woord?
Woord is a free online TTS with a lot of useful features. It’s available in over 50 languages, including a variety of English, Portuguese, and Spanish dialects. You can also choose between a male, female, or gender-neutral voice. All of these features are available for free, allowing you to check out the service before investing in the premium version. Surprisingly, the free edition includes premium voices, a Chrome plugin, an SSML editor, and an MP3 download, as well as up to 20,000 characters every month. This software also allows you to adjust the pace and format of the voices.
Woord‘s voice features allow you to use it in a variety of settings. For example, in E-learning and education, you can use Woord‘s Text-to-Speech (TTS) functionality to create applications that assist persons with reading problems.
How does it work?
To get an audio, you must do the following:
- Select “Online reader” from the menu at www.getwoord.com, or install the Chrome extension on your computer.
- Write your text on the whiteboard, then select an Portuguese voice, gender, speed, and format.
- When you’re finished, click ‘Speak It’ to make sure everything is in order.
- Once you’re satisfied with the outcome, save it to your computer.
You can check out Woord’s Chrome Extension by clicking here.
Also published on Medium.