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* '''On the top level is the speech engine (espeak) producing the speech.
* '''There are two options for using a layer over TTS engine espeak, one is a speech dispatcher which was created as last year GSoC project and other is the gstreamer plugin.
* '''There are two options for using a layer over TTS engine espeak, one is a speech dispatcher which was created as last year GSoC project and other is the gstreamer plugin.
* '''Both of these use espeak. Listen and Spell uses the speechd. But when I discussed it with alsroot on IRC, he told me that using a speechd is a bad idea because it has become a system daemon and requires root privileges to work. Therefore using gstreamer plugin is the only and best idea.
* '''Both of these use espeak. Listen and Spell uses the speechd. But when I discussed it with alsroot on IRC, he told me that using a speechd is a bad idea because it has become a system daemon and requires root privileges to work. Therefore using gstreamer plugin is the only and best idea.
* '''Then a command line tool that will be operated by a button or Keyboard shortcut to speak the selected text.
* '''Then comes the GUI for the configuration management tool of the speech. It will configure the sound qualities like volume, language, accent, pitch etc.
* '''For the GUI pyGtk can be used.
* '''For the GUI pyGtk can be used.
* '''A small code snippet which I have prepared for demonstration purpose is shown below. You can copy paste this and try it. First select some text and then run the code trough terminal. The code will speak the text. This is a very basic thing which we want to achieve in sugar'''
* '''A small code snippet which I have prepared for demonstration purpose is shown below. You can copy paste this and try it. First select some text and then run the code trough terminal. The code will speak the text. This is a very basic thing which we want to achieve in sugar'''
import gtk
from espeak import espeak
obj=espeak()
clip=gtk.Clipboard(display=gtk.gdk.display_get_default(),selection="PRIMARY")
text=clip.wait_for_text()
if text==None:
obj.speak("Sorry! No text is selected")
else:
obj.speak(text)
: '''You can select the text anywhere in the sugar. Be sure to first install the espeak. Although I have created this code using espeak but in future I will be using gstreamer plugin.
: '''You can select the text anywhere in the sugar. Be sure to first install the espeak. Although I have created this code using espeak but in future I will be using gstreamer plugin.
A: According to me, the main aim of sugar labs is to spread the fruit of literacy in developing nations. It is a common experience that we learn very fast on listening things then reading them. Providing speech in core sugar will be like making the sugar 10-15% more efficient. When children of age group 3-15 and who are learning languages will hear the speech again and again they will be able to learn it very fast. Not only this, now they will be able to hear a story or any other text than just reading it. One more potential advantage is for blind students which can't read the texts but can learn the language by listening it and feeling the words.
A: According to me, the main aim of sugar labs is to spread the fruit of literacy in developing nations. It is a common experience that we learn very fast on listening things then reading them. Providing speech in core sugar will be like making the sugar 10-15% more efficient. When children of age group 3-15 and who are learning languages will hear the speech again and again they will be able to learn it very fast. Not only this, now they will be able to hear a story or any other text than just reading it. One more potential advantage is for blind students which can't read the texts but can learn the language by listening it and feeling the words.
: According to Edward Cherlin <echerlin@gmail.com>
: '''call our text coloring engine to mark the word being spoken. That's designed for the pre-literate, on the model of Same-Language Subtitling in India.
: '''According to Edward Cherlin <echerlin@gmail.com>
: "call our text coloring engine to mark the word being spoken. That's designed for the pre-literate, on the model of Same-Language Subtitling in India."
: Means the people in developing nations like India can learn the language or text faster if same language subtitling model is employed.
: Means the people in developing nations like India can learn the language or text faster if same language subtitling model is employed.
: '''According to Philip Wagner <Philip5147@aol.com>
: "I am Philip Wagner. I am a member of the Education Team for Sugar Labs. I was a teacher for seventeen years in Africa and in the United States.
The speech synthesizer is very important to help children learn to speak, read and write languages.
Some research states that a child needs to hear words pronounced between one hundred and one thousand times before the child knows the word. This is a monumental task for a teacher to be repeating words enough times for the children to learn. The speech synthesizer is a tool which helps the teacher in doing some of that repetition. The more words a child knows the more learning can take place inside the child's brain. We think with words. If we do not have the words necessary to do the thinking then things don't progress as well.
For writing, the child listens to a story that the speech synthesizer very patiently repeats as many times as the child needs it and then the child writes the story in his or her own words..
The hearing, seeing, and writing of the words helps the student for reading.
There are many more words that are used in books and on the internet than we use to speak with.
In English we use about ninety thousand words for speaking. An estimate of the total words in English is more than five-hundred-thousand. One dictionary has five-hundred-thousand entries.
The more a child learns the more the child will learn. We cannot depend on teachers to teach enough words to children.
: '''I am very much encouraged that Chirag Jain is working toward preparing the speech synthesizer in Sugar."