My Nuvi speeks Westbrook as Westblook

Around here Shady Grove Road is often pronounced Shady Rove Road. And the problem with abbreviations - Oy Vey!

Maybe the voice is asian and can't sat the letter "R"

Mine says things differently in different places.

It pronounces the town of Lakeport as Lak-A-Port. However, it pronounces Lakeport Drive in the same town properly.

It will also pronounce Cosumnes differently depending on whether it's saying to "turn ahead" or if I'm actually ON the road. (It gets it wrong in both instances but pronounces it differently.)

It pronounces the abbreviation BR as "branch" rather than "business route".

It's weird what the thing gets right and what it gets wrong and the way that it's not consistent with pronouncing the same words the same way all the time.

Garmin would do well to remember to spell some things phonetically. It gives the speech a more realistic sound to it. For instance, I used 'Dawge', instead of 'Dodge' when I changed one of my phrases, and it now sounds like people say it instead of Dod-ge.

Sometimes it depends on the underlying map data.

For Queen Elizabeth Way sometimes I notice on the map banner it is spelled QEW and pronounced Q. Other times it is spelled Q E W and pronounced properly as individual letters. It's not always caused by the TTS program.

Similarly sometimes Lakeshore Boulevard is spelled Lake Shore and pronounced properly, but when spelled Lakeshore in the map data it is pronounced lak-eh-shore.

Sometimes map updates fix things, other times they introduce new errors. Spadina used to be pronounced spa-dee-nah, but on the more recent map updates it is pronounced correctly as spa-dye-nah.

I think someone has developed a TTS editor, but I have never taken the time to mess with it. Sometimes it's fun to laugh at TTS-Samantha.

And does it speak "My" as 'Mu"?

Mine calls Adelphi Road, uh-del-fee instead of uh-del-fie and Little Patuxent Parkway as puh-took-sint instead of puh-tux-sint.

Oh well, all you have to do is look at the screen and you know what she's talking about.

Garmin has nothing to do with it. The names are imbedded in the Navteq maps and Garmin only tries to speak what it sees. And frankly, the English language just isn't that straightforward.

I do know that punctuation is a BIG deal to the TTS engine. "Dr" is "Drive" but adding a period makes "Dr." come out "Doctor". I suspect the same thing with BR vs BR. It's not all Navteq's fault, either. The municipalities report the names and addresses. If they don't do it consistently, it's harder for the Nuvi to figure out what they mean, especially when it comes to abbreviations. I have on occasion had to spell my POI's or Favorites phonetically to get them pronounced correctly, though.

Personally, we find it highly amusing and even a little endearing. Sort of like a 5 year old learning to read.

Nuvi 660 says: Touhy as Tweey

My Editing of text to speech has also come up with some interesting things...
I tried "Oh My" Got: "Ohio My"
I knew "OK" would come out as "Oklahoma" So I used "Okay"

Is there a way of adding inflection to a Pharase?
I want: "Try to stay on the road this time, Okay?
I want: "Try to stay on the road this time... Okay?
I got: "Try to stay on the road this time ok"

Sorry about that. I fixed my typo. it no more mu.

Is it possible that somewhere there's a software engineer laughing him/herself silly about all of this because they actually thought all of this out and did it on purpose? I mean, just think how it seems that the GPS seems to get more aggravated every time it has to say "re-calculating". My wife says that the more Jill has to say this, the more ticked off she sounds. I firmly believe that software engineers have a sense of humor as opposed to a lot of people who think they don't. (Maybe a weird sense of humor, but a sense of humor no less.)

My house in NY is off the Meadowbrook Pky & in Florida my house is on Meadowbrook Lane. My GPS pronounces them two different ways even though they ars spelled the same way.

RIGHT sounds more like (raw-it) I'm just used to it but it is strange!

C'mon people....it's doing what it's programmed to do. You couldn't say that everyone's pronunciation is perfect for everything can you?

BruceMck, sounds like you live probably live in the Toronto area, or somewhere b/w Toronto and Buffalo/Niagara border. I'm wondering how your GPS pronounces "Mississauga" - if you ever go there that is. That's a tough one. I'm from U.S. but visited a friend in Mississauga last year. I don't remember how the GPS said it. I probably had the radio turned up.

I have always taken the stance of if I don't like what they are saying, I just change the language file. Like someone said, it's just doing what it was programmed to do.

I just change the voice if I don't like the way it is speaking. For the most part, I just kind of get a kick out of it when it says it wrong. Mine often times sees WA 500, which is Washington route 500 as Western Austrialia 500. I think it's funny.

I usually keep the sound off when I am driving (it interferes with the books on tape in the car CD player) but when I find myself on roads like Auchentoroly Terrace, I have to turn it on just for the laughs. Listening to the newbie traffic reporters on the radio trying to manage that one is just as good!