Using phonetic pronunciation

<phoneme>

This tag is supported by long-form, neural, and standard TTS formats.

To make Amazon Polly use phonetic pronunciation for specific text, use the <phoneme> tag.

Two attributes are required with the <phoneme> tag. They indicate the phonetic alphabet Amazon Polly uses and the phonetic symbols of the corrected pronunciation:

With the <phoneme> tag, Amazon Polly uses the pronunciation specified by the ph attribute instead of the standard pronunciation associated by default with the language used by the selected voice.

For instance, the word "pecan" can be pronounced two ways. In the following example, “pecan” is assigned a different pronunciation in each line. Amazon Polly pronounces pecan as specified in the ph attributes, instead of using the default pronunciation.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

<speak>
     You say, <phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="pɪˈkɑːn">pecan</phoneme>. 
     I say, <phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="ˈpi.kæn">pecan</phoneme>.
</speak>

Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA)

<speak>
     You say, <phoneme alphabet='x-sampa' ph='pI"kA:n'>pecan</phoneme>.
     I say, <phoneme alphabet='x-sampa' ph='"pi.k{n'>pecan</phoneme>. 
</speak>

Mandarin Chinese uses Pinyin for phonetic pronunciation..

Pinyin

<speak>
     你说 <phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-pinyin" ph="bo2">薄</phoneme>。 
     我说 <phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-pinyin" ph="bao2">薄</phoneme>。
</speak>

Japanese uses Yomigana and Pronunciation Kana.

Yomigana

<speak>
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-yomigana" ph="ひろかず">浩一</phoneme>です。
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-yomigana" ph="ヒロカズ">浩一</phoneme>です。
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-yomigana" ph="Hirokazu">浩一</phoneme>です。
</speak>

Pronunciation Kana

<speak>
     名前は<phoneme alphabet="x-amazon-pron-kana" ph="ヒロ'カズ">浩一</phoneme>です。
</speak>