how to make c++ talk

[mrronoah]

Its hard to explain but for example i input "hello" and it actually says that aloud. similar to the say command in osx terminal.

[The Protostar]

I dont think thats possible. I only know about the tune making codes like the piano which uses beeps to generate tunes.

[modoran]

Yes, there is possible. I only know how to do it for windows platform using Microsoft Speech API. Not sure if there is a library for *nix platforms.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj127857.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj127902.aspx

[mrronoah]

Thanks i will look into it. I hate the Microsofts website to many adjoining links. grr. Also i am on windows i just thought that the osx thing was a good example. :)

[andywestken]

There are also open source alternatives (see below)

A problem I encountered with the Microsoft speech engine were the limited voices, inc. (spoken) languages, available for free. For example, I could not find a (free) French voice for my prototyping. So I defected (to Festival.)

Gnuspeech
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnuspeech
(code in C, "cross-platform")

eSpeak text to speech
http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
(coded in C, for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, ...)

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESpeak

Because of its small size and many languages, it is included as the default speech synthesizer in the NVDA open source screen reader for Windows, and on the Ubuntu and other Linux installation discs.

The Festival Speech Synthesis System
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/
(code in C++, "cross-platform")

Festival Text-to-Speech Online Demo
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/onlinedemo.html

FreeTS
http://freetts.sourceforge.net/docs/index.php
(coded in Java)

Andy

PS As OS X is your target:

From Speech Synthesis in OS X
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/SpeechSynthesisProgrammingGuide/SpeechOverview/SpeechOverview.html

OS X includes an advanced speech synthesizer that provides high-quality synthesized speech and comprehensive speech synthesis APIs that allow developers to create and customize spoken output.

Check out:

Carbon Speech Synthesis API
Cocoa Speech Synthesis API