Custom pronunciation
Use inline tags to control how words are pronounced.
When dealing with proper nouns or words with multiple possible pronunciations, you may want to use a different pronunciation than what LMNT produces by default. Pronunciation tags allow you to specify how an individual word should be pronounced.
The tag format is [word : arpabet] where word is the word you want pronounced differently and arpabet is a space-separated list of ARPABET phonetic symbols. Tags are insert in-line with your input text.
Example:
The [quick: K W IH1 K] brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
What is ARPABET?
ARPABET is a set of symbols that correspond to phonemes in English. It’s like a “phonetic alphabet” that’s used to indicate how a word is pronounced.
LMNT supports a simplified version of ARPABET as shown below. We also use stress markers (numbers after each vowel) to indicate which syllable is emphasized. For example, EMphasis → EH1 M F AH0 S IH0 S whereas emphaSIS → EH2 M F AH0 S IH1 S
Vowels:
AA AE AH AO AW AY EH ER EY IH IY OW OY UH UW
Consonants:
B CH D DH F G HH JH K L M N NG P R S SH T TH V W Y Z ZH
The mandatory number after a vowel indicates different levels of stress as follows:
| number | meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | not stressed |
| 1 | primary stress |
| 2 | secondary stress |
e.g. AA0 AA1 AA2
Take care to inlcude only one single primary stress vowel in any given pronunciation tag to avoid inconsistent results.
Example pronunciations:
- Quack → K W AE1 K
- Spider → S P AY1 D ER0
- Mango → M AE1 NG G OW0
Custom Dictionaries
If you have a large enough number of custom pronuncations that makes it cumbersome to use inline tags, we support Custom Dictionaries for Enterprise customers; get in touch with sales.
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