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

[GizmoGuy411]

This sounds like another one of those positional issues. I think I recall jasonh300 saying something before about a similar situation.

I'm not even sure how show in the list that "Br" is sometimes "Bridge" and sometimes "Branch" for the very same road segment, depending on how Samatha feels at the moment. I'll have to think on it.

Looking at the list again, "Br" is not a good choice for "Bridge" based on the official abbreviations of the US Postal Service and the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

And for the record, the only time I think I have ever seen the word "Branch" is when I added it to the list from the USPS! At least I've heard of the word "Branch, but "Stravenue"? I had to look that one up when I first found it in the USPS list. And as uncommon as it may be, I think it wins for having the most possible abbreviations.

[GizmoGuy411]

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I was testing for "Connector" but I'll add "Conn." to my test rig... It's kinda small, so I can only do a few at a time...

Ahh! I edited that, and made a cross ref with Connecticut too.

[GizmoGuy411]

"Conn" says "Con" in TTS... Added 9/10/2012 to my test rig (parking lot at work)...

I just updated the road names for the next update as well...

Thanks Andy...

Adding your results to the list now.

Did you happen to test "Conn." with the period too?

Eventually for completeness, I also want to test all the similar "alternate" state abbreviations with and without periods that I mention at the top of the state list. If "Penn" can say "Pennsylvania" then I'm sure others are in use too. Of course not all will cause issues like "Penn" does when roads are named after people like William Penn!

And speaking of "Penn", I kept it listed in the state list, but added it back to the main list with a reference to the state list. Since it is one of those that has a dual meaning I figured it should really be in both places.

[GizmoGuy411]

As is mentioned in this thread and elsewhere, we have no ability to influence TTS pronunciation. We have requested a phonetic field which would help in many cases, but would not likely be able to influence accents.

Alan,

The post reason was twofold. Confirmation that N# produces 'north number' in TTS despite no spacing and I'm interested to know if there is a current 'workaround' for this.

I'm not concerned about the accent, but it would be cool if Waze had this bit customized with voice files like Garmin and other providers.

The TTS override as discussed elsewhere is a good idea, but if the current Livemap does not even indicate reality, this is likely also far off.
It might actually happen in my lifetime still, you never know...

If you read back a couple of pages in this forum you will see the only work-a-round that we know of for pronouncing the letters N, E, S, and W. Not elegant or optimal, but it works.

The answer is also in the list.


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[GizmoGuy411]

Penn for Pennsylvania was moved from the main list to the State abbreviation list where it belongs, along with other alternate state abbreviations. Yes we definitely want it removed from the TTS!

Am I correct in my assumption that this means that William Penn Highway will now be called "William Penn Highway" as oppoesed to "William Pennsylvania Highway"?

If so thanks, that was annoying.

No. Nothing has changed except where we had "Penn" in the test list.

The list has no impact on how Waze handle TTS. It is merely to learn how TTS currently works as Waze has no documentation themselves. The TTS results are actually a product of a company called Nuance.

We still do not know if, how or when our list may be able to help Waze influence the TTS package.

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[GizmoGuy411]

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We do get streets called "All Saints", However, as there are not many streets with this name it might be a good if we use "saint" in full rather than abbreviated.

That's our motto here. "When in doubt, spell it out!"

[GizmoGuy411]

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Ok, I changed the four segments to be W Ave 'n', so when exiting the freeway the navigation would announce the street name correctly?

Yes it should, but please report back to let us know how the TTS sounds.

[GizmoGuy411]

Another example abbreviation problems...

Type: General error
Description: voice calls this "west avenue north" but it is "west avenue N"
Reported on: Yesterday

N is the letter of the street (A,B,C,...L,M,N,O) So it is not North.... So what do I do with the request UR

https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=4&lat ... FTTTTTTTFT

Thanks

Unfortunately there is only one solution at the moment, and that is to rename the road [West Avenue 'n']. You could also name it [W Ave 'n'] however I would opt to be as close to however the local signage displays it.

Note that 'N' will not work, only a lower case 'n' works so far that we have found for TTS to actually pronounce the letter instead of the cardinal direction. So same holds, 'e', 's', and 'w'.

[GizmoGuy411]

..."bee eye aye" ...

FYI, in my area of the country "eye" and "aye" are both pronounced the same.

Phonetic representation of that would be "eɪ" as in "say," but that makes me realize there is no real easy was to represent vowel-only sounds without resorting to "as in" or using the phonetic characters.

Just checked to see what phonetic representations I used in the list for the letters, and even they could get pronounced differently by various English speakers. Not sure where I even found them at the moment.

[GizmoGuy411]

Is it essential to have TTS say "Bureau of Indian Affairs Thirteen" for that road? What's wrong with calling it "be eye ay thirteen"? Or would TTS call that "by-ah thirteen" instead?

I would think that the letters "BIA" would be fine if the TTS results were predictable for letters. However even when all caps are used, results can be either the letters spoken or an attempt to make it a word. Adding spaces works with exception of the N E S W letters which result in the cardinal directions. So "B I A" should work for now at least. I suppose I should add a test for "B.I.A." too, so as to match the signage.