Change the language or voice of spoken text

Important: When you change the language or voice settings for Select to Speak, you change them for all Select to Speak products, like the screen reader.

1. At the bottom right, select the time.
   • Or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings Accessibility Text-to-Speech.
3. Under 'Text-to-Speech', select Text-to-Speech voice settings.
4. Turn on Select to Speak.
5. Select Select to Speak settings.
6. To change the language or voice for Select to Speak:
   • Change the language and preferred voice: Under 'Speech', select the language and type of voice that you want to hear.
   • Change to natural voice: To use a more realistic, life-like voice, turn on Use natural voice when device is online.
     • When you select a natural voice, in order to process the voice, the text that you select will be sent to Google.

Tip: Even if you change the language under "Text-to-Speech" settings, you have to change the system language for your Chromebook to read in another language. You can change the system language in your Chromebook’s settings, under Language and inputs.

Manage your Chromebook language

1. At the bottom right, select the time.
   • Or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings Advanced Languages and inputs.
3. Under 'Languages and inputs', select Languages.
4. Next to 'Device language', select Change.
5. Select your preferred language for your device.
6. Select Confirm and restart.

Tip: You can also change the preferred language for websites and change your Google Account language.

1. At the bottom right, select the time or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings Accessibility.
3. Under 'Text-to-speech', select Text-to-speech voice settings.
   • Under 'Speech engines', select Settings and choose a voice:
     • Chrome OS TTS: Voices have a more human-sounding quality and are very responsive.
     • eSpeak: Voices have a more computer-generated sound and are available in a wider variety of languages.
   • Under 'Speech properties', choose the rate, pitch and volume.

Tip: To install the natural-sounding voices, next to 'Chrome OS built-in text-to-speech extension', select Settings. Next to your preferred language, select Install.

Related resources

• Hear text read aloud
• Turn on Chromebook accessibility features