Hi,
One of the goals of this dictionary is to make people more aware of their own accents and how accent-specific their rhymes might be. But it can be difficult to believe that accents exist where a given pair of words rhymes or doesn't rhyme. It can help to hear people with different accents pronounce the words. Here are some ways you can do that:
Text-to-speechYour computer or phone probably has text-to-speech software built in, and it may have a selection of voices with regional accents.
On a Mac, you can go to System Preferences→Accessibility→Speech and choose a voice; you can download many voices with other accents and languages by choosing 'Customize…' at the bottom of that menu. Once you've chosen a voice, you can select text in any application and go to the Edit menu, Speech submenu, and choose 'Start Speaking'.
On an iPhone, you can change Siri's accent by going to Settings→Siri→Siri Voice and selecting an accent. Then you may need to turn on Speak Selection. Go to Settings→General→Accessibility→Speech and turn on Speak Selection. Now you can select text in any application and choose the 'Speak…' option.
On the web,
acapela group has a text-to-speech demo with several accents and languages.
Speech sample databasesThere are several websites with recordings of different speakers reading a sample passage. Some I like are:
The Speech Accent Archive by George Mason University. This has the same passage read by native and non-native English speakers from around the world, and phonetic transcriptions of their recordings.
The Language Index by Marburg University. This one has speech samples and information on not only different accents of English but also many other languages of the world, and even some languages of other (fictional) worlds. You will have to create a free account to see all the languages.
Do you know of any other such resources, or how to change accents of the text-to-speech on other computers?
