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Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clients

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:07 pm
by GizmoGuy411
[Please note that this lead post is edited periodically to reflect updated information, with any changes highlighted in the color of the date that follows:]

Post edit history:
2014-08-24 The Big List is now maintained entirely as a Google document and it no longer sourced from an Excel file.
2014-08-16 Every entry in the Big List has now finally been tested. A number of new entries also added.
2014-03-06 Column added to List to differentiate ROUTING TTS from DESTINATION TTS results.
2013-09-16 Minor rewrites of various paragraphs.
2012-10-31
2012-09-24
2012-09-06
2012-08-20
(earlier post edit history not maintained)
This is a list of abbreviations and acronyms that are being added to two sandbox test rigs, to be tested in the Waze clients to learn their TTS output results for North America. (Jenncard maintained a second test rig.)

All tests are with the Nuance female "Samantha" voice only as used in North America. While we expect that the other English voice choice for NA, "Tom", is likely to use the same TTS databases, we have not tested for it.

The list includes all the official and alternate abbreviations of the United States Postal Service, all the English abbreviations for Canada Post, a subset of the French abbreviations for Canada Post, a subset from the U.S. Federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices plus a number of others suggested by Waze users. (Additional abbreviations from the MUCCD for individual U.S. States and from any equivalent list for Canadian Provinces, have not yet been compiled.)

Official abbreviation list sources for specific states or providences are linked from their respective names in the test list.

If you already know or learn any TTS results, please post them here. Please submit only results that you are absolutely sure of, with the exact spelling (including any capitalization) of the abbreviation, and the confirmed TTS output result.

Also submit any additional abbreviations that you feel should be part of the list for testing and/or for future inclusion in the TTS system.

Some current abbreviations such as "Penn" (which generates "Pennsylvania") should probably be removed from the TTS system in favor of using the capitalized two letter State and Province abbreviation standards. We should also discuss others for consideration that may need to be removed from the TTS.

To hear the most current TTS results from your Waze client device, it may be necessary to clear your current TTS cache. Enter "cc@tts" without quotes in the Navigation search to clear the cache. Waze should reply with a "TTS cache has been cleared!" popup box. Then wait for "Searching ..." to end.

This list will be updated periodically. (The initial list was submitted 2012-01-18, which took a month for Waze to process, and for us to test in the Waze Clients.)

Once we learn what the TTS currently knows, we can add the results of this list to the Wiki, plus
we can use it to submit our requested TTS "wishlist" changes to Waze. Please note that entries in this are for testing purposes and do NOT automatically imply that we endorse them. This list is primarily to research as many possible abbreviations that we can test to learn what Waze currently recognizes or not.

To learn how to hear the TTS files on your Android device manually, read the side notes in the following post: http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 96#p144296

A section on Abbreviations has been added to the Waze Wiki. The link below takes you to a selection of countries. Select your country from the list and follow the links to the abbreviations in your country:
Editing Manual > How to label and name roads (by country)

In the United States you can go directly to the US Abbreviations and acronyms list.

Google Drive Spreadsheet:
Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clients - Test List for North America aka the "Big List" or the "Big TTS Test List".


Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:06 pm
by gerben
As TTS abbreviations are language dependant, I guess this one belongs in the US subforum indeed.

Moved.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 9:56 pm
by gerben
Well, if they implement a filter for #tts, maybe it is better to implement a dedicated tts input field.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:18 pm
by gettingthere
Request to add (does not work currently)

C - Calle - The abbreviation would be the first word in the street name

We'll need to add a bunch of Spanish abbreviations since there are loads of streets in many states where the street name is in Spanish.

Pso - Paseo - confirmed working in TTS
Av - Avenue - confirmed working in TTS

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:19 pm
by gettingthere
May need to use a single or double quote around the street name so that Waze understands that it's not an abbreviation that needs to be expanded.

"N" St
or
'N' St

We just need to decide on a standard to use and ensure the TTS acts as we expect.

For example: in centro/downtown Tijuana Mexico, some streets are named with a letter. On the physical street signs, the letter is in double quotes.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:43 pm
by gettingthere
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:Do quotes still result in being backslash-escaped to \' and \" ? I haven't tried recently.
I don't know. I'll have to set a route to somewhere in downtown Tijuana and find out how it's pronounced in the TTS.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:41 pm
by gettingthere
image619 wrote:Is there any way to force the client to not translate a road name? In San Diego, we have a road names Upas St, and the client calls in Underpass St. (according to a problem report).

Here it is, in case you're interested:
https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=5&lat ... ts=6989588
I would recommend that you contact Waze support regarding this. I don't know that upas should be an abbreviation for underpass. They should be able to fix this in the English TTS.

www.waze.com/support

Also, thanks for your contributions to the map in San Diego.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:11 pm
by gettingthere
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:
txemt wrote:I have confirmed, about 5 minutes ago, that Clle reads out as "call"
I thought we decided a while back to just spell out "Calle" as it's only a single character different.
Yes, I was involved in that thread and that was the recommendation for the USA. This is what we have done throughout San Diego. Although the abbreviation from the base map import in San Diego was Cll vs. Clle.

The recommendation for Spanish speaking countries that are using the Spanish TTS was to use C. But I don't know if that is actually parsed correctly.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:12 pm
by GizmoGuy411
CBenson:
Excellent points CBenson. Some of the words you mentioned were already in the list I believe, however I'll be sure to add the ones you mentioned. At the Palo Alto Meet-Up there was discussion about many of the issues you mentioned. We did kick around the idea of using "St." for "Saint" and "St" for "Street" as you mentioned. I'll be sure to add "St." The list does have NE. NW, SE, & SW to see what they generate, but I forgot about the issue of differentiating roads named with a letter such as "E" from "east" as the current "E" abbreviation currently says. Since there are fewer roads named with a letter than roads that include a direction, we will have to think of a way to make them different. Maybe with quotes? Anyone else have ideas here?

I suppose I should test every letter of the alphabet to see what they say. N, E, S, & W may not be the only ones that produce a word.

mapcat:
Your welcome... altough I don't think I got any points for making that list did I? :)

AlanOfTheBurg:
Actually Alan, the list was to be multipurposed. Intially to learn what abbreviations the TTS already knows, and secondly to be a basis for creating our TTS "wishlist" for Waze. I'll see if I can make that clearer in the lead post. Thanks.

jason300
Thanks Jason.

Re: Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clien

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:08 am
by GizmoGuy411
gettingthere wrote: ... We'll need to add a bunch of Spanish abbreviations since there are loads of streets in many states where the street name is in Spanish. ...
Geez, I wonder who we could ask that might know those!