I got this idea from my daughter who was making us utterly crack up this weekend with her imagination. It wasn’t so much what she said. It was how she said it.
Rather how Ginger said it.
Ginger is the name we gave to the voice on Google Translate. My daughter was making Ginger say some of the most preposterous things.
For example:
Hello, I am a stupid machine. Do you still love me? It is good that you love me since I don’t care. I don’t have emotions. Tell me what I should say. How I should feel. See, I am stupid. What’s the weather like outside? How old is that cat? I have mental problems. Can you tell?”
If you read those lines … it just seems silly. Listening to Ginger say them, however, is a flipping riot.
Which got me thinking about that particular piece of writing advice that says we should read what we wrote out loud. This exercise is supposed to help you to hear if it makes sense.
So what if Ginger read your copy out loud? Give it a shot.
- Go to Google Translate.
- Drop your copy in first box.
- Translate in language of choice.
- Hit the speaker icon.
I experimented with a few posts … and it was funny. But very bumpy. She has zero emotion. Misses inflection. And stops halfway through on long posts.
Give it a shot with a short piece, and let me know what you think.
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Tried it out. Kind of hilarious, but useful.
If you want totally emotionless, try the one in Adobe Reader.
Some of the speech there is way off base.
For instance, the voice doesn’t know the difference between read and read.
Come to think of it, neither do I.
Thanks for the tip, Demian. I’m going to use it on the article I’m writing “write” now.
Steve
I did not know that Adobe Reader had a Ginger. Will have to try it out. Speaking of mispronunciation, there is a street near us called “Mascoutah Avenue,” and Siri, says “Mah-scoutah.” Gets us giggling every time. 😀
I hope my writing is a little better than GInger made it sound. It was funny, though! 🙂
I’m sure it is, Summer. 😀
Stellar tip, Demian! As a copywriter and totally blind guy, I use a screen reading program (which has text-to-speech) every single day. Honestly, I’ve always seen my blindness as an advantage when writing because my screen reader is always reading my text aloud. I make so many edits based on the way things “sound” out loud.
Want to get really crazy? If you have a Mac, press CMD + F5 to enable VoiceOver—and you can have Apple’s Alex voice read your text. He’s pretty good with pronunciation—but the weird part is when he takes “breaths”. I kid you not. He’ll breathe any time there’s a punctuation mark, much like we’d take natural pauses in our speech. It’s wild!
Justin, thank you for your great reply. Your story is fascinating. And I tried that Alex, and yes, that is wild how he pauses to take breaths. He is also very fast. 😀
Justin, that’s awesome 🙂
Demian – this is hilarious.
I just tried some random copy and found that with a comma, for example:
“take your life, career and creativity to the next level”
“Take your life….”
[big pause]
etc. 🙂
Careful with your copy 😉
Oh my, there could be some really existential stuff coming out of Ginger. Like you said, watch out. 😀
P.S. Awesome pic of Jon Cage.
P.P.S I would perhaps reconsider using the ‘translate’ function and learning a language that way 😉
I like the pic, too. Glad someone finally identified him. 😀 And yes, learning a new language with translate … that’s the educational side of the equation. 😀