"say" in different language?

Question

Are there voices in different languages installed in Mac OS X? E.g. spanish, french or slovak? (latest iPod Nano built-in voiceover has beautiful slovak voice, I'd like to try it on Mac OS X too)

Answer 1

You can use the following command in the Terminal to get a list of all the available voices:

say -v \?

On my system the output looks like this with the voice name followed by the language abbreviation (I removed the comments):

Agnes en_US
Albert    en_US
Alex  en_US
Alice it_IT
Alva  sv_SE
Amelie    fr_CA
Anna  de_DE
Bad   News
Bahh  en_US
Bells en_US
Boing en_US
Bruce en_US
Bubbles   en_US
Carmit    he_IL
Cellos    en_US
Damayanti id_ID
Daniel    en_GB
Deranged  en_US
Diego es_AR
Ellen nl_BE
Fiona en-scotland
Fred  en_US
Good  News
Hysterical    en_US
Ioana ro_RO
Joana pt_PT
Junior    en_US
Kanya th_TH
Karen en_AU
Kathy en_US
Kyoko ja_JP
Laura sk_SK
Lekha hi_IN
Luciana   pt_BR
Maged ar_SA
Mariska   hu_HU
Mei-Jia   zh_TW
Melina    el_GR
Milena    ru_RU
Moira en_IE
Monica    es_ES
Nora  nb_NO
Paulina   es_MX
Pipe  Organ
Princess  en_US
Ralph en_US
Samantha  en_US
Sara  da_DK
Satu  fi_FI
Sin-ji    zh_HK
Tessa en_ZA
Thomas    fr_FR
Ting-Ting zh_CN
Trinoids  en_US
Veena en_IN
Vicki en_US
Victoria  en_US
Whisper   en_US
Xander    nl_NL
Yelda tr_TR
Yuna  ko_KR
Zarvox    en_US
Zosia pl_PL
Zuzana    cs_CZ

This is an example on how to use say with a german voice, as suggested by scottishwildcat in the comments:

say -v Anna 'Guten Tag!'

In case you want to hear the example list, you can copy this for loop into your terminal, which will result in all installed voices speaking a text example:

say -v \? | while read LINE
 do
  SPEAKER=$(echo $LINE | perl -ne 'print "$1" if m/(.+?)[[:space:]]+.._..[[:space:]]+#/')
  TEXT=$(echo $LINE | egrep -o "#.*" | tr "#" " ")
  echo $SPEAKER
  echo -ne "This is voice $SPEAKER speaking the example text: \n" $TEXT | say -v $SPEAKER
 done

Answer 2

For Mac OS X 10.7, Swedish works pretty well by just downloading the Swedish voices using Preferences->System Voice->Customize and setting either as System Voice. It neatly nails even pretty peculiar Swedish words and spellings.

No guarantee for other languages.

Answer 3

As far as I know the only way to get a Mac to speak in another language is to get voice resources in your target language. A web site for French blind people recommends iVox.

Sorry, no Slovak there I can see.

Answer 4

Lion has many more voices, including Czech (Zuzana) and Slovak voice (Laura)!

Answer 5

The voices included in Mac OS X 10.6 are optimized for english only. Even if you set your system language to anything different, it won’t work, because it will try to read with english pronunciation, causing funny wordings. Try saying “Hola” for spanish and you’ll see how it says: “hooola” as an english speaking person would read it.

Answer 6

It might be a bit hard to find the international for OS X Lion, this shows how...

http://www.litebeam.net/litebeam/read4me/voices.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RUI5d5L_wr8

Answer 7

Yes, with macOS Big Sur 11.3.1, several languages are pre-installed to be used with the say command in the terminal.

You can check for the available voices in System Preferences > Accessibility. In the left pane, select Spoken content. From the System Voice drop-down menu, you can see the list of already installed voices. You can change here the default voice. Select Customise to add more voices and more languages. You can pre-hear these voices by clicking on the voice name and then clicking the Play button. Once you select new voices, click on OK and they will be downloaded. It might take a few minutes.

You can use the following command in the Terminal to get a list of all the available voices:

say -v'?'

On my computer, this command outputs:

Alex                en_US    # Most people recognize me by my voice.
Alice               it_IT    # Salve, mi chiamo Alice e sono una voce italiana.
Alva                sv_SE    # Hej, jag heter Alva. Jag är en svensk röst.
Amelie              fr_CA    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Amelie. Je suis une voix canadienne.
Anna                de_DE    # Hallo, ich heiße Anna und ich bin eine deutsche Stimme.
Audrey              fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Audrey. Je suis une voix française.
Aurelie             fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Aurelie. Je suis une voix française.
Carmit              he_IL    # שלום. קוראים לי כרמית, ואני קול בשפה העברית.
Damayanti           id_ID    # Halo, nama saya Damayanti. Saya berbahasa Indonesia.
Daniel              en_GB    # Hello, my name is Daniel. I am a British-English voice.
Diego               es_AR    # Hola, me llamo Diego y soy una voz española.
Ellen               nl_BE    # Hallo, mijn naam is Ellen. Ik ben een Belgische stem.
Fiona               en-scotland # Hello, my name is Fiona. I am a Scottish-English voice.
Fred                en_US    # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Ioana               ro_RO    # Bună, mă cheamă Ioana . Sunt o voce românească.
Joana               pt_PT    # Olá, chamo-me Joana e dou voz ao português falado em Portugal.
Jorge               es_ES    # Hola, me llamo Jorge y soy una voz española.
Juan                es_MX    # Hola, me llamo Juan y soy una voz mexicana.
Kanya               th_TH    # สวัสดีค่ะ ดิฉันชื่อKanya
Karen               en_AU    # Hello, my name is Karen. I am an Australian-English voice.
Kate                en_GB    # Hello, my name is Kate. I am a British-English voice.
Kyoko               ja_JP    # こんにちは、私の名前はKyokoです。日本語の音声をお届けします。
Laura               sk_SK    # Ahoj. Volám sa Laura . Som hlas v slovenskom jazyku.
Lekha               hi_IN    # नमस्कार, मेरा नाम लेखा है. मैं हिन्दी में बोलने वाली आवाज़ हूँ.
Luca                it_IT    # Salve, mi chiamo Luca e sono una voce italiana.
Luciana             pt_BR    # Olá, o meu nome é Luciana e a minha voz corresponde ao português que é falado no Brasil
Maged               ar_SA    # مرحبًا اسمي Maged. أنا عربي من السعودية.
Mariska             hu_HU    # Üdvözlöm! Mariska vagyok. Én vagyok a magyar hang.
Mei-Jia             zh_TW    # 您好，我叫美佳。我說國語。
Melina              el_GR    # Γεια σας, ονομάζομαι Melina. Είμαι μια ελληνική φωνή.
Milena              ru_RU    # Здравствуйте, меня зовут Milena. Я – русский голос системы.
Moira               en_IE    # Hello, my name is Moira. I am an Irish-English voice.
Monica              es_ES    # Hola, me llamo Monica y soy una voz española.
Nora                nb_NO    # Hei, jeg heter Nora. Jeg er en norsk stemme.
Paulina             es_MX    # Hola, me llamo Paulina y soy una voz mexicana.
Rishi               en_IN    # Hello, my name is Rishi. I am an Indian-English voice.
Samantha            en_US    # Hello, my name is Samantha. I am an American-English voice.
Sara                da_DK    # Hej, jeg hedder Sara. Jeg er en dansk stemme.
Satu                fi_FI    # Hei, minun nimeni on Satu. Olen suomalainen ääni.
Serena              en_GB    # Hello, my name is Serena. I am a British-English voice.
Sin-ji              zh_HK    # 您好，我叫 Sin-ji。我講廣東話。
Tessa               en_ZA    # Hello, my name is Tessa. I am a South African-English voice.
Thomas              fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Thomas. Je suis une voix française.
Ting-Ting           zh_CN    # 您好，我叫Ting-Ting。我讲中文普通话。
Veena               en_IN    # Hello, my name is Veena. I am an Indian-English voice.
Victoria            en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Xander              nl_NL    # Hallo, mijn naam is Xander. Ik ben een Nederlandse stem.
Yelda               tr_TR    # Merhaba, benim adım Yelda. Ben Türkçe bir sesim.
Yuna                ko_KR    # 안녕하세요. 제 이름은 Yuna입니다. 저는 한국어 음성입니다.
Yuri                ru_RU    # Здравствуйте, меня зовут Yuri. Я – русский голос системы.
Zosia               pl_PL    # Witaj. Mam na imię Zosia, jestem głosem kobiecym dla języka polskiego.
Zuzana              cs_CZ    # Dobrý den, jmenuji se Zuzana. Jsem český hlas.

(partially taken from https://maithegeek.medium.com/having-fun-in-macos-with-say-command-d4a0d3319668)