The Benefits of Text-to-Speech

Even if you love your job, translation and revision are tasks that require a lot of focus and strain the eyes. As we all know from experience, our focus level is constantly fluctuating due to factors like stress and fatigue. No matter how interesting your text is, if your eyes have had enough, you’re not going to see the mistakes. Knowing that, what can you do to deliver this document when you’re having trouble focusing and even reading?

There are lots of tech solutions today that make translators’ work easier, like text-to-speech. With this feature, you can count on David or any other text-to-speech voice to read your masterpiece when you’re not feeling up to it.

It’s not a reckless shortcut like you might think. In fact, neuroscience tells us that this technique makes use of how our brain works. A study published in 2019 in the Journal of Neuroscience showed that brain functions and zones used for semantic comprehension are practically the same whether you’re reading or hearing a text. The study found that the resulting semantic representations are practically the same in both cases.

Is text-to-speech hard to use? Not at all. All you have to do is add the Speak button to your quick access bar in Word. So next time, when your eyes are starting to cross or you’re done with this whole “reading” thing, all you’ll have to do is select the text you want to read and click on the icon for your favourite robot to read it for you.

This feature, of course, won’t do the work for you and it isn’t a replacement for your know-how. It’s especially useful for your final checks since it allows you to make sure your grammar is correct, that the text is idiomatic and that the ideas flow well between each other. That’s not all: it helps you catch typos, extra or missing words and even punctuation errors. Highlight the sections to fix as the computer reads them out so you can work on them after.

Try it out! The results could surprise you and even help you relax. Listening to your work being read out loud could give you a sense of satisfaction.