A Guide to Phonetics and Pronunciation

Tips and tricks on how to get your concierge to pronounce your business name correctly.

When it comes to your brand, Slang knows how important it is to be consistent. We also know that getting text to be read exactly how you want it can sometimes be a frustrating task. This guide will help with tips on how to finesse the pronunciations within your Slang concierge.

Location Name

Proper nouns and names can be difficult for digital voices to get right, as there is so much nuance depending on locale. If your greeting sounds off, click on your location name in the Introduction portion to open an editor.

In the editor, you can make phonetic edits and preview how your location name sounds in your chosen voice. Don't be shy - experiment and see what sounds best!

Sometimes, breaking words out into multiple pieces is the best way to achieve the desired audio result. Other times, we need to exaggerate some sounds phonetically. Here are a few examples and how we might get your Slang concierge to provide the proper pronunciations:

Other Topics

Don't forget to preview any custom text responses you add to the platform. This is, first and foremost, the best defense against typos being read out to your guests! Something not sounding quite right? There are some small adjustments you can make for the speech to sound natural.

Dollar amounts

Generally and by default, dollar amounts will be read aloud as plural. So if you write into the concierge:

“Our Happy Hour specials include $10 cocktails and $5 beers.”

Callers will hear:

“Our Happy Hour specials include ten dollars cocktails and five dollars beers.”

Inverting the order solves the issue:

“Our Happy Hour specials include cocktails for $10 and beers for $5.”

Alternatively, you can spell out "dollar" in the copy:

“Our Happy Hour specials include ten dollar cocktails and five dollar beers.”

Address details

Longer addresses might be read out with mathematical language rather than conversational. So if you write:

“Our address is 5684 State Street.”

Callers may hear:

“Our address is five-thousand six-hundred eighty-four State Street.”

Adding spaces between numbers solves the issue. Writing:

“Our address is 56 84 State Street.” 

will read aloud as

"Our address is fifty-six eighty-four State Street."

Heteronyms

Read and read, lead and lead, live and live - English is a fickle language and sometimes, even with context, our concierges still get the pronunciation wrong. 

Some fixes are easy:

Some fixes require a little bit more ingenuity:

Other notes and considerations

Each voice has a slightly different pronunciation profile based on the region (such as US English versus UK English). If you change the voice of your concierge, make sure to double check the pronunciation of your copy so that callers are hearing exactly what you want them to!