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All models in the Sonic TTS family support custom pronunciations in your transcripts. Try out the pronunciation tool on our demo page.
sonic-3 supports custom pronunciation dictionaries, which allow specifying how to pronounce a specific word or words more easily and sustainably.At its core, a dictionary is a simple search and replace, which directs the model to use another string in lieu of the text for the transcript. The pronunciation can either be an IPA pronunciation, or a “sounds-like” guidance:
[
  {
    "text": "bayou",
    "pronunciation": "<<ˈ|b|ɑ|ˈ|j|u>>"
  },
  {
    "text": "jambalaya",
    "pronunciation": "<<ˈ|dʒ|ə|m|ˈ|b|ə|ˈ|l|aɪ|ˈ|ə>>"
  },
  {
    "text": "tchoupitoulas",
    "pronunciation": "chop-uh-TOO-liss"
  }
]
These JSONs can then be saved as a pronunciation dictionaries through our API, or through our playground. The playground gives affordances for creating and manipulating dictionaries also directly in the UI:image.pngOnce the dictionaries are created, they can be used in any of the TTS APIs by specifying the id in pronunciation_dict_id.With the above dictionary, the string: I ate some jambalaya on tchoupitoulas street would become I ate some <<ˈ|dʒ|ə|m|ˈ|b|ə|ˈ|l|aɪ|ˈ|ə>> on chop-uh-TOO-liss street before being handed off to the model, which in turn, would do a better job in pronouncing it properly.

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Case Sensitivity

Dictionary matching is case-sensitive, with one exception: a lowercase entry also matches its sentence-start capitalized form. For example, cat matches both cat and Cat, but not CAT. An entry for CAT only matches CAT.This applies to multi-word entries too. An entry for green valley matches green valley and Green valley, but not Green Valley.Use lowercase entries for common words. These match the word both mid-sentence (cat) and at the start of a sentence (Cat), covering the two most common positions.Use exact capitalization for proper nouns. A term like “LaTeX” should be entered as LaTeX so it doesn’t collide with a different pronunciation for the common word latex. For multi-word proper nouns, enter the exact casing as it appears in your transcripts — for example, Green Valley if the transcript capitalizes both words.