Pronunciation guides

This page lists the forms a pronunciation guide takes, the rules for each kind, and the warnings a guide can cause.

Where a guide goes

A guide follows the word or expression that it describes. The app takes the guide out of the text and uses it.

Kind	What it holds	Example	What the app does
Phonetic respelling	Syllables joined by hyphens, with the stressed syllable in capitals	Krebs cycle [KREBZ SY-kul]	Keeps the printed words and speaks them with the sounds of the guide
Say-as guide	Words that the voice says in place of a printed expression	x2 [x squared]	Speaks the guide’s words instead of the expression
Spell guide	Letters or digits joined by dots or hyphens	FAD [F.A.D.]	Speaks the letters one at a time

A phonetic respelling covers every occurrence of its word in the same part of the question: the stem, one choice, or the answer line. A say-as guide replaces one occurrence of its expression in the same part: the first one. Put the guide after the first occurrence.

A guide matches its word exactly as printed. A different capital letter, a plural, or, with a Piper voice, a possessive counts as a different word.

Phonetic respelling

Write the sounds of the word with plain English spellings, one syllable at a time.

Rule	What to write
Syllables	Join the syllables of a word with hyphens: SY-kul.
Words	Separate the words of a name with a space: KREBZ SY-kul.
Stress	Write the stressed syllable in capitals. The first capitalized syllable of a word gets the main stress, and each later one gets a lighter stress.
One word	A bracket with one lower-case word of three or more letters is a phonetic respelling: [jool]. Its one syllable is stressed. The words sic, note, see, ibid, emphasis, added, and edited are not guides.
Variants	Give a second variant after or. The app speaks the first: [pi-KAHN or PEE-kan] speaks pi-KAHN.
Spellings	The app knows 93 spellings and matches the longest first, such as ay, ee, eye, oh, oo, uh, ih, eh, ah, aw, ow, oy, er, ur, ar, or, air, eer, zh, th, dh, ng, ch, sh, kw, ks, and yoo. A plain y stands for the vowel in “eye”.

The printed word stays in the Spoken script view. The voice receives its sounds separately, as an exact pronunciation in IPA.

You paste	Spoken script	Sounds (IPA)
Krebs cycle [KREBZ SY-kul]	Krebs cycle	ˈkɹɛbz ˈsaɪkəl
Pharynx [FAR-ingks]	Pharynx	ˈfæɹɪŋks
Esophagus [i-SOF-uh-guhs]	Esophagus	ɪˈsɑfəɡəs
Trachea [TRAY-kee-uh]	Trachea	ˈtɹeɪkiə
pecan [pi-KAHN or PEE-kan]	pecan	pɪˈkɑn
jewel [jool]	jewel	ˈdʒul
olivine [OL-uh-veen]	olivine	ˈɑləvin

The app refuses a guide that it cannot place whole. It speaks the word plain, shows a warning, and never guesses.

Case	Example	Result
More than one syllable, all in capitals	olivine [OL-UH-VEEN]	No syllable stands out for stress. The status bar shows the warning “No pronunciation for respelling [OL-UH-VEEN]: ‘olivine’ is spoken plain.” Write [OL-uh-veen] instead.
A spelling the app does not know	xqzite [XQZ-ite]	One unknown spelling fails the whole guide. The status bar shows the warning “No pronunciation for respelling [XQZ-ite]: ‘xqzite’ is spoken plain.”

The first row raises this warning in the status bar.

The warning for a respelling with every syllable in capitals.

Say-as guides

A say-as guide replaces a printed expression with the words that you write.

You paste	Spoken script
x2 [x squared] plus 4 2/7 [4 and two-sevenths]	x squared plus 4 and two-sevenths
What is 6 × 7 (read as: six times seven)?	What is six times seven?
The constant π [pi] is irrational.	The constant pi is irrational.
The copper(I) [copper-one] ion forms.	The copper-one ion forms.
2 H2 + O2 → [yields] 2 H2O	2 H two plus O two yields 2 H two O

A bracket counts as a say-as guide when it follows a printed expression and holds squared, cubed, prime, degrees, percent, a number phrase such as one-seventh, or several words. A one-letter symbol such as π, an element with its oxidation state such as copper(I), and an arrow before [yields] work the same way.

A guide for a whole expression replaces everything in it. Without the two guides in the first row, the same text reads “x squared plus four and two sevenths”. A fraction inside the guide’s own words is read as a fraction.

Spell guides

A spell guide gives letters or digits joined by dots or hyphens. The letters must match the word that the guide follows. The app says each one, and a digit becomes a number word.

You paste	Spoken script
H2S [H-2-S]	H two S
the ETC [E.T.C.]	the E T C

A spell guide forces the letters. Without a guide, a Piper voice says ETC as “et cetera”, and a Kokoro voice says SEM and CAM as the words “sem” and “cam”. The app already spells FAD, so FAD [F.A.D.] changes nothing.

Other accepted forms

The app accepts the forms in this table. It closes an unclosed [ or (read as: at the end of the text.

Form	Notes
[guide]	The standard form, after the word.
(read as: guide)	Also (read as guide).
(pronounced: guide)	Also (pronunciation: guide).
(read "guide")	The guide sits between quotation marks.
Read as: guide	At the end of the text, with no brackets.

Notes the app ignores

Some brackets hold a note, not a guide. The app handles them as follows.

Text	What the app does
A bracket with spaces that starts with NOTE or holds MUST, ACCEPT, or STUDENTS	Drops it.
Name the planet [NOTE: ACCEPT EITHER].	Reads Name the planet.
[1]	Drops a bare footnote mark.
[sic]	Keeps the word and removes the brackets, so the voice says “sic”.

Warnings

A guide that the app cannot use raises a warning, and the reading goes on. The status bar shows each warning after “Warning:”, or after “n warnings:” when a reading raises several. A warning stays in the status bar after the sound ends. Point to the status bar to read a long warning in full.

Most engine messages mention an override, an exact pronunciation for a word or phrase that a guide, the lexicon, or a systematic chemical name can set.

Warning text	What it means
Guide [guide] dropped: ‘word’ is not in the text.	The word that the guide describes is not in the text.
Guide for ‘word’ dropped: it holds no words.	A say-as or spell guide holds only punctuation.
No pronunciation for respelling [guide]: ‘word’ is spoken plain.	The app cannot place the whole respelling, for example because every syllable is in capitals or a spelling is unknown.
piper: dropped IPA symbol ‘c’ (U+XXXX) from the override for ‘word’: not in the phoneme map of voice	The Piper voice has no sound for one symbol. The app keeps the rest.
piper: override for ‘word’ has no usable IPA symbols; spoken plain	The Piper voice has no sound for any symbol, so it says the word plain.
piper: override surface ‘word’ not found in the segment text	The word is not in the text that the voice speaks. One cause is the possessive Avogadro's of a word in the lexicon.
Kokoro: override surface ‘w’ has a bracket; spoken plain	The word holds a bracket character, so the voice says it plain.
Kokoro: dropped chars from IPA ‘ipa’ for ‘w’	The Kokoro voice has no sound for some characters of the pronunciation.
Kokoro: no usable phonemes for ‘w’; spoken plain	The Kokoro voice has no sound for any part of the pronunciation.
Kokoro: override surface ‘w’ not found in segment text	The word is not in the text that the voice speaks.
Kokoro: could not pronounce ‘w’; it was skipped	The Kokoro voice could not turn the word into sounds, so it says nothing for the word.

To fix a warning, correct the guide and read the question again. If a voice has no sound for a symbol, spell the sound another way or remove the guide. For a guided lesson, see Fix a mispronounced word. For every other message, see Status messages. For what the app says without a guide, see Pronunciation examples.