Speechmatics Extends Transcription Offering With Sounds Feature

Speechmatics has launched the Sounds feature, a new addition to the company’s current speech-to-text offering. Sounds allows the speech engine to understand the difference between word pronunciations and the way they are written.  

Sounds extends the Custom Dictionary feature, which lets users add context-specific words in real-time, such as footballer names or breaking news locations, instantly delivering consistency and reliability of specific words and ultimately increasing the accuracy. By refining the pronunciation within Custom Dictionary, Sounds can help with the spelling of names, products, acronyms, abbreviations, trademarks, copyrights, and alternate word forms.

Ian Firth, VP Products at Speechmatics, explained: “In the broadcast industry, subtitling for names and words that don’t sound phonetically as they are written is an ongoing bugbear and can be a cause for significant embarrassment by the broadcaster... With Sounds, our engine simply needs pronunciation hints that describe the sounds of the words, like ‘AI’ pronounced as ‘ay eye.’ It is not necessary to use phonetic definitions, but something that sounds like the word you want to define and the way that you want it to be written. It can even be used to change things completely, for example you could easily configure it so that ‘Dr’ is written every time ‘Doctor’ is said.” 

The Sounds feature is available now through Custom Dictionary.