Have you ever noticed that particular accent that you just love listening to? Or maybe you are planning a trip somewhere foreign and you want to try to talk like the natives to fit in. Maybe Alexa’s voice just simply annoys you the way she is right now.
Whatever the case may be, if you want to change Alexa’s voice, you can. It’s as simple as opening your Alexa app’s settings, tapping “Language” and picking the one you want to try! If you are not sure which one you want, take a look here – you have a few voice options to choose from, but be careful: Alexa not only speaks in that language or accent, but understands it as well, so if you don’t have a voice to match, you are probably going to have some mutual comprehension issues.
1. Make a pitch change.
Right now Alexa’s voice is set to default to speak as a female since according to research studies people find women’s voices more relaxing and welcoming. If you prefer a male’s voice, you can lower her pitch through the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) to make her voice deeper and more manly sounding. But you might want to call him Alex then, in which case you’ll have to change the wake-up word, and then you have the question – if you get lost due to his directions, will Alex admit it?
2. Give her “parenting” rules.
A new option through the SSML is very helpful to parents of young children. You can change the settings to program Alexa to “bleep” out any expletives that she may say when she reads your texts out loud, for example. You can also program specific words to be spelled out (i.e., texting your spouse that it’s time for your child to take an n-a-p, or that you may go to D-i-s-n-e-y).
3. Change her English accent.
Selecting a different country in your language settings will change the regional accent that Alexa’s voice uses. She can speak in dialects found in English-speaking countries throughout the world. Play around with your languages and you will be able to hear Alexa speak with accents found in the United States, Canada, India, Australia and the United Kingdom. Just remember, if you don’t have that same accent, you may have a hard time understanding her and she will definitely not understand you as clearly as she once did.
4. Have a conversation in German.
As of 2016, Alexa became available in Europe, pushing developers to program her with languages other than English. The language they chose to start with was German, and Alexa is now multi-lingual, with the ability to listen and respond in American English, U.K. English, and German. These languages are set to default to the customer’s primary marketplace, be it U.K., Germany or America. Sprechen sie Deutsch, Alexa?
5. Apply to participate in developer previews for other Alexa’s voice options.
Currently, Amazon developers are allowing selected users to access eight US English voices that are used with Amazon Polly, allowing them to apply selected voices to different characters in stories or listen to certain celebrities as their Amazon voice choice. Interested? You can apply for the chance to participate in this developer preview here.
The push for other voice options is heavy, and Amazon Alexa developers know the demand is real. You can expect more voice options to be released in the future, but for now, did you know “g’day mate” sounds the same as “good eye, might?” Ask Alexa, she’ll tell you it’s true.