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From: porter@cbmvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Arpabet
Message-ID: <175@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-May-86 17:19:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.175
Posted: Thu May  1 17:19:04 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 4-May-86 07:10:15 EDT
References: <1733@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 45

> I want to teach my Amiga to speak Spanish!  I propose to write an alternate
> translate library to map Spanish words into phoneme strings.  

We, at Commodore-Amiga are trying to do this now.  Our only problem is
that the firm that did the orginal speech for the Amiga wants $100K PER
LANAGUAGE to translate it!!!!  EGADS!!!!

As you may know, Commodore is an international company with a VERY
strong European sales organization.  We had planned to produce
national versions for:

Germany/Austria
France/Belguim
Italy
UK
Netherland
Sweden/Finland
Spain/South America
Iceland
Denmark
Switzerland
Norway
French Canadian

...and that's just for starters, but I'm not sure we can justify
that kind of expense for each country.  I mean, we're talking
$6 Million for starters!!!  At this price, I don't think we are
getting our money's worth.

As an alternative, I have my amiga speaking german, but I have
to mis-spell it (using speech toy or some simple basic program)
to make it come out right.  For instance:

Spreken zee doytsch?  jah, noor eyen bisschen.

Maybe the same can be done with Spanish?

Habblay ess panyolay?     (sorry, I don't know spanish pronounciation)

Par lay voo fron cay?     (French either)

Hope this helps....

Jeff Porter
Commodore Engineering