Why do we have to have a British voice on our Irish satnav maps??

Run_to_da_hills

I was driving back from limerick last night, listening to a British voice on my Garman satnav trying to prounoune places like "PortLaoise", Pháirc Mhuire, Dunlaoghaire and even "Limerick". I might as well be driving on the continent

It wouldnt take much to have a native from this country pronounce these town names correctly. They are selling enough of them here

Seth Brundle

Contact the manufacturer and ask them why they haven't considered it before

niceirishfella

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I was driving back from limerick last night, listening to a British voice on my Garman satnav trying to prounoune places like "PortLaoise", Pháirc Mhuire, Dunlaoghaire and even "Limerick". I might as well be driving on the continent

It wouldnt take much to have a native from this country pronounce these town names correctly. They are selling enough of them here

The answer is the people who made your sat nav could'nt be arsed to get a Irish voice over artist to vo the maps for Ireland. And your right, it would not have taken much to have done it right. I'll bet they dont have a russian voice over artist doing their USA gps systems.......bloody shower.:eek:

Masada

i use the american voice on mine., the english one is far too posh.,lol

Run_to_da_hills

niceirishfella wrote: »

The answer is the people who made your sat nav could'nt be arsed to get a Irish voice over artist to vo the maps for Ireland. And your right, it would not have taken much to have done it right. I'll bet they dont have a russian voice over artist doing their USA gps systems.......bloody shower.:eek:

They probably had a guy from Cork working for them but sacked him because no one in the Garman factory could understand him

the_syco

OP: I'd advise ye to get "Gift Grub, Volume 7", for some "Irish" SAT NAV laughs.

mike65

Ireland is a tiny market for sat-nav they proberly did'nt think it worth the bother hiring James Nesbit/Terry Wogan for the gig.

Mike.

CrowdedHouse

Leave Emily alone !!

I think Port Layo Ise is gas and Lime Rick too,it gives me a laugh

sharkman

Get a TomTom and you'll have Kathy & Aongus , both Irish giving you guidance !

Alun

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I was driving back from limerick last night, listening to a British voice on my Garman satnav trying to prounoune places like "PortLaoise", Pháirc Mhuire, Dunlaoghaire and even "Limerick". I might as well be driving on the continent

It wouldnt take much to have a native from this country pronounce these town names correctly. They are selling enough of them here

Placenames and streetnames are pronounced by a TTS (text-to-speech) engine, not pre-recorded. You don't seriously think there's a library of pre-recorded pronunciations of every single town and street in the country built in to these things, do you?

TTS technology is complicated and imperfect, even for the mainstream European languages, and the market for an Irish version would be so vanishingly small, it wouldn't be worth their while. For fixed words like "turn', "left", "roundabout" etc, these are pre-recorded, and could be recorded in an Irish voice if they wanted to, but let's face it Ireland is a small country with a population that's a tiny percentage of their total market.

Guy:Incognito

I pity the fool that doesnt have Mr.T on his satnav.:D

eamon234

Weirdest one I saw was R2D2 how in the name of Jesus are you supposed to know what he's saying!!???

steveland?

eamon234 wrote: »

Weirdest one I saw was R2D2 how in the name of Jesus are you supposed to know what he's saying!!???

You don't speak droid?

I'm doing my final year project for college in Dublin accent text-to-speech, when I get it done I might try and implement it in maemo mapper for my Nokia 770 (which uses flite for the speech, a cut down version of Festival Speech Synthesis which is what I'm using for the TTS).

Should be fun if I get it working

mick.fr

My Garmin is in British too and I find the voice alright.
I tried the French Canadian when I bought it and I could laugh to death, the girl and guy have such a French-Canadian accent, much fun.

ninty9er

here's why we don't have an Irish voice.....

The Jonjoe

Saruman

Someone my wife knows has one with Yoda.... If you ignore the directions the satnav gives you... Yoda says "ah going to the darkside are you?"

Anyway... im sure you can download new voices on some of the better models..
Me... i do not have one and do not see myself using one. By the time you program somewhere in i have found it on the map and have already started driving.

testicle

The voice on Garmins is computer generated. It is not pre-programmed with the pronounciation of towns.

Our man in Havana

How do you get it to pronounce the names of the towns? My Garmin Nuvi only does the directions and not the names of the towns.

CrowdedHouse

Some models don't have it I'm afraid.....

For instance(my) Nuvi 660 has it,but the 610 hasn't.

E92

This has to be the most pointless thread ever. Talk about begrudgery like!

ninty9er

E92 wrote: »

This has to be the most pointless thread ever. Talk about begrudgery like!

I don't get you on that one!

E92

ninty9er wrote: »

I don't get you on that one!

Read the title!

ninty9er

Is it a direct response to the title?? That was quite unclear if that was what you meant, because of the comment about the thread being pointless....we have many pointless threads....in fact almost every thread is pointless to someone out there


miffed!

pdebarra

I reckon it's a very fair point. The self-service checkouts in supermarkets are the very same. They have the most godawful English accents. I mean, if you must put a British voice on such things, at least make it a sexy Scot or something, not a posh Englander.

It grates. A lot.

fumpidge

E92 wrote: »

This has to be the most pointless thread ever. Talk about begrudgery like!

This is anything but pointless. Great men have fought and died for Ireland. Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett would all turn in their graves if they heard a foreigh voice on particularly a British one in their cars every time they turned a corner. If the Irish government had any guts they would ban these thing until they sorted out the problem.

kdevitt

fumpidge wrote: »

This is anything but pointless. Great men have fought and died for Ireland. Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett would all turn in their graves if they heard a foreigh voice on particularly a British one in their cars every time they turned a corner. .

I'd imagine they'd get a fright alright if they heard a car talking to them in any accent...:rolleyes:

Some people have far too little to worry about.

E92

fumpidge wrote: »

This is anything but pointless. Great men have fought and died for Ireland. Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett would all turn in their graves if they heard a foreigh voice on particularly a British one in their cars every time they turned a corner. If the Irish government had any guts they would ban these thing until they sorted out the problem.

Oh for Christs's sake this is pathetic. Has nobody told you we're not in a war at the moment, and we've had independence from Britain for almost 86 years?

_Kaiser_

fumpidge wrote: »

This is anything but pointless. Great men have fought and died for Ireland. Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett would all turn in their graves if they heard a foreigh voice on particularly a British one in their cars every time they turned a corner. If the Irish government had any guts they would ban these thing until they sorted out the problem.

*sigh* the usual "800 years" crap again? :rolleyes:
Here's a hint - build a bridge, get over it. The vast majority of people (on both sides) DON'T CARE and have MOVED ON - even Paisley seems to be mellowing these days.

fumpidge

E92 wrote: »

Oh for Christs's sake this is pathetic. Has nobody told you we're not in a war at the moment, and we've had independence from Britain for almost 86 years?

Have you been hiding under a rock for the last 86years, what about the North? It wouldnt surprise me if the defense forces are using these corrupted satnavs

Guy:Incognito

Jesus , your actually serious. I assumed you were being sarcastic the first time.

E92

fumpidge wrote: »

Have you been hiding under a rock for the last 86years, they still have the North. It wouldnt surprise me if the defense forces are using these corrupted satnavs

I was going to tell you what I think of your petty point but then I realised that I would be feeding a troll here, so stop trolling.