Sat Nav Speech Inpediment

Gabbitas · 24/12/12 - 10:35

I have a Garmin Sat Nav that has a speech impediment. It has difficulty pronouncing words ending in "er".

"Chelmer Road" comes out as "Chelm Road" and "Bessemer Road" translates to "Bessem Road". Interestingly it manages "Broadwater" OK.

It presumably has a standard English text-to-speech engine on board, so the rules of English would suggest that it should pronounce these places accurately. I know that some British placenames have eccentric pronunciations, but that doesn't apply in these cases.

Anyone else experienced this?

walesrob · 24/12/12 - 11:07

Gabbitas wrote: »

I have a Garmin Sat Nav that has a speech impediment. It has difficulty pronouncing words ending in "er".

"Chelmer Road" comes out as "Chelm Road" and "Bessemer Road" translates to "Bessem Road". Interestingly it manages "Broadwater" OK.

It presumably has a standard English text-to-speech engine on board, so the rules of English would suggest that it should pronounce these places accurately. I know that some British placenames have eccentric pronunciations, but that doesn't apply in these cases.

Anyone else experienced this?

Garmin should be prosecuted for crimes against the Welsh language.

My Garmin spoken voice seems to have major problems with nearly all Welsh-place names or Welsh-road names. Example: Penparcau in Aberystwyth is pronounced pen-par-ki (as in sky), but silly Garmin calls it Pen-parco. And Maesheli becomes Miss-Shelly. Wtf?

Its almost like a bastardised version of Welsh.

Paul237 · 24/12/12 - 11:13

I haven't experienced that, but mine has issues when a road ends in "two".

For example, if it wants me to take the M42, it'll say "take the M-forty-two-t-Birmingham". It struggles with "two" and "to" when they're together.

d0lphin · 24/12/12 - 11:17

It's the same with A roads, the A5117 (which we would call the A five one one seven) becomes the A five thousand one hundred and seventeen.

angelafisher · 24/12/12 - 11:33

d0lphin wrote: »

It's the same with A roads, the A5117 (which we would call the A five one one seven) becomes the A five thousand one hundred and seventeen.

Yep, mine does that too!!

3PS · 24/12/12 - 11:34

My sisters sat nav pronouces most street names wrong, it's like shes to posh to bring herself to say them.

bazzaroo · 24/12/12 - 11:48

P-p-p-please don't t-t-take the m-m-m-mickey out of s-s-s-speech impediments, having a s-s-stammer is no laughing m-m-matter.

solarflare · 24/12/12 - 12:12

Paul237 wrote: »

I haven't experienced that, but mine has issues when a road ends in "two".

For example, if it wants me to take the M42, it'll say "take the M-forty-two-t-Birmingham". It struggles with "two" and "to" when they're together.

Trouble at t'mill?

stoatie · 24/12/12 - 12:15

I've always liked the idea of a satnav that changes accent depending on where you are, so it sounds like you're being shown around by a local.

Galaxy266 · 24/12/12 - 12:22

walesrob wrote: »

Garmin should be prosecuted for crimes against the Welsh language.

My Garmin spoken voice seems to have major problems with nearly all Welsh-place names or Welsh-road names. Example: Penparcau in Aberystwyth is pronounced pen-par-ki (as in sky), but silly Garmin calls it Pen-parco. And Maesheli becomes Miss-Shelly. Wtf? Its almost like a bastardised version of Welsh.

You can add that Gwbert (pronounced Goo-bert) comes out as Gwubbert on a Garmin Satnav!

fenlander · 24/12/12 - 12:54

I never suspected I might be subject to road rage until I switched from a NavMan to a Garmin satnav. It drives me totally to distraction. I now keep the sound switched off and find it much improved.

[Deleted User] · 24/12/12 - 13:25

stoatie wrote: »

I've always liked the idea of a satnav that changes accent depending on where you are, so it sounds like you're being shown around by a local.

wow that would be sooo cool, especially if it automatically changed.

We have the built in one, and at the moment we have 'James - from Australia'

he says (when we have reached our destination)
Windows up, grabs your sunnies and dont let the seagull nick your chips....

love it!

Caxton · 24/12/12 - 13:56

Galaxy266 wrote: »

You can add that Gwbert (pronounced Goo-bert) comes out as Gwubbert on a Garmin Satnav!

It would take a damn good sat nav to recognise every single place and street name in Wales pronounced correctly. Sat navs are designed as an aid to find places the average person from most of Britain would not have clue where to go if it is pronounced in Welsh

Example: Penparcau in Aberystwyth is pronounced pen-par-ki (as in sky), but silly Garmin calls it Pen-parco.

Other than the Welsh speakers by any stretch of the imagination who would believe that "cau" would be pronounced "sky". The phonetic pronunciation that the sat nav uses is far better to understand, even if it is not pronounced correctly

After all if a sat nav pronounced Kurcudbright in Scotland Kirk-cud-bright a stranger would find it better than kirk-coo-bree or Wymondham in Norfolk as Why-mond-ham rather than how it is locally pronounced as Wydham.

bart4858 · 24/12/12 - 14:07

Caxton wrote: »

Other than the Welsh speakers by any stretch of the imagination who would believe that "cau" would be pronounced "sky".

I read that as the "-ky" bit of "sky", without the "s" (just like the "..-ki" example provided!)

After all if a sat nav pronounced Kurcudbright in Scotland Kirk-cud-bright a stranger would find it better than kirk-coo-bree or Wymondham in Norfolk as Why-mond-ham rather than how it is locally pronounced as Wydham.

How should Loughborough be pronounced using your system? Or Leicester? Or Towcester? With more well-known names, everyone knows what they ought to sound like, and it would be a distraction to pronounce them in the manner of an American tourist.

Sigurd · 24/12/12 - 14:09

My ancient TomTom doesn't actually say place names anyway, just things like, "Take the second exit at the roundabout," or, "Keep right."

trigpoint · 24/12/12 - 19:51

I just keep the voice switched off on mine, they are annoying. An occasional glance at the screen is enough, with an occasional beep for cameras and traffic changes.

Or at least I did until Tomtom updated their software to force you to select a voice when you switched it on, got around that by installing a silent voice. Still don't know why they made such a stupid change to the software.

ba_baracus · 24/12/12 - 20:01

We need more gay Sat Navs.

Babe Rainbow · 24/12/12 - 20:09

I've got a proper Garmin satnav now but when I used to use the one on my phone, there was one place where it would go proper psycho.

Just one point on a perfectly straight A road where my journey would be straight forward for about 7 miles. But it would be " slight left to stay on A5, continue straight to stay on A5, slight right to stay on A5, continue straight to stay on A5,slight left to stay on A5...." blah blah ad nauseam for about five minutes.

Or it would try to direct me to turn left into a trading estate that led nowhere at all.

Bulletguy1 · 24/12/12 - 20:35

Interesting topic as I have a TomTom Go750.....so a current model, but touring in Eastern Europe this year I noticed how it kept missing off a letter when giving voice commands.

I put the question on TomTom forum and someone suggested I checked to ensure i'd got the current updates in, plus also checking I was using a 'fast' card (which I was). I updated it off TT website but noticed it's still the same.

Last week I drove down to Banbury and gave it a trial run.

The voice commands will go like this; "take the fourth exit to Banbury on the A42^%$*"........instead of A422 the last number or sometimes letter gets 'dropped',

I also notice what seems to be a significant pause in directions which, particularly when negotiating a busy roundabout, is most disconcerting.

Anywhere in UK is not too bad, but when driving in foreign countries it's extremely annoying.

My previous TomTom was a GO700 which was about five years old and I never had this problem at all.

krytenk · 24/12/12 - 20:41

I had one of the early TomTom systems. Was fine at first, but after a year it developed a stutter that no system reset could cure. It once managed to get seven syllables out of the word Slough!

[Deleted User] · 24/12/12 - 21:33

my first sat-nav would wait until you were actually on the roundabout to tell you which exit to take..... arrrgghhh

am i going left or right? what lane should i be in??????

it was a very early built in system in my 03 picasso

Hey there!

Quick Links

Sat Nav Speech Inpediment

Comments