TTS question

 

My Nuvi660 arrived last week, from Costco.ca. I paid CAD$689.99 + 14% in taxes. Shipping was free.
I am still facing a steep learning curve, and I would like some help.
Yesterday, I was out-and-about in my home town, and I had selected Australian Karen as my guide. She appears to have a reading disability; specifically, instead of directing me to turn right on "Molson Park Drive West", she told me to turn right on "Molson Park Doctor West".
During the same trip (playtime, actually!), instead of "Livingston Street West", she called it "Livingston Saint West".
Has anyone else experienced this?
Thanks
Dave

abbreviations

Dr and St are abbreviations. That is what she is trying to pronounce. It's apparently a guess. Dr is the abbreviation for doctor as well as drive. and St is the abbreviation for street, saint and state. She regularly misprounces lots of our street names, but so do lots of new residents and visitors...even TV announcers wink

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Old Guys Rule

Pronounciations

LOL....you should hear how people here pronounce Tuam street (it's Too-am) or Kuykendahl (kerk-in-doll) or where Anna Nicole was from...Mexia (Ma-hee-uh). Or Refugio (Re-Fur-ee-oh). I'd love to hear how La Jolla is pronounced. Or Tejas Toyota (Tey-hahs).

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Old Guys Rule

Dave get

use to that. She tells me to turn on Harry Ridge Bullvard, instead of Heritage Ranch Boulevard. Some are even worse than that.

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Garmin 660

It's more fun when the GPSr gives up...

and just spells out the name!

In Agreement

My 660 pronounces Queensborough Br as Queensborough Brother instead of Queensborough Bridge and sometimes
pronouces a highway shown as Hwy by saying H-W-Y. Really amusing!

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Peter

Being an

American company, I wonder why Garmin wouldn't use an American to do the pronouncing? I know there out there.........good question to pose to Garmin. Think I will.

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Garmin 660

Never happened to me.

drdevo wrote:

and just spells out the name!

That has never happened to me.

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Charley - Nuvi 350 - Bel STI Driver - Cobra 29 w/ wilson 1000 - AIM: asianfire -

I had the same issues. I

I had the same issues. I would definitely go with an American voice. Of course, some of the pronunciations won't change much when you are using abbreviations.

Thanks for the replies. I'm

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to pick an American Bingo Caller, and drive the same route again. Any predictions?
BTW, no one mentioned the price I paid. Was it a bargain or a rip-off? (The US and Canadian dollar are very close to par, as I type.)

Maybe a

little high on price, not much, but a rip-off on taxes. wink)

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Garmin 660

"little high on price, not

"little high on price, not much, but a rip-off on taxes."

Yeah. But we've got Health Care!

Bingo

dave_cl wrote:

... I'm going to pick an American Bingo Caller, and drive the same route again. Any predictions?

What the heck is a bingo caller voice??????????

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Charley - Nuvi 350 - Bel STI Driver - Cobra 29 w/ wilson 1000 - AIM: asianfire -

"What the heck is a bingo

"What the heck is a bingo caller voice??????????"
Most people call them "News Anchors" or "TV Reporters".

I think it might have something to do with punctuation

If the TTS engine sees in the map data "Dr." - it's "doctor" and "Dr" it 's "Drive"...or the other way around...

My funny one was in Des Moines Iowa...the road: George M Mills Civic Parkway...Karen called it "George The 1000th Mills Civic Parkway"...I still laugh about that one.

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*Keith* MacBook Pro *wifi iPad(2012) w/BadElf GPS & iPhone6 + Navigon*

Pronunciations

I am hard of hearing so I use the English "Dan" voice as it is loud and very clear, however my wife and I have had some pretty long laughing jags brought on by "Basil" as my wife calls him, after the John Cleese character in "Faulty Towers". He also says saint for St. But the best was when we visited Rochester, NY on our Thanksgiving, the US Columbus Day weekend and he called Mortimer Street, More Timer Saint, we still laugh about that one. I have had the Nuvi 670 about a month and am still amazed at what it can do and I really enjoy this group and the information that is available from the people here.

Doug

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Nüvi 3790

So Dan is louder then Jill?

So Dan is louder then Jill? I am going to have to try that, but I rather have Jill's voice.

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Charley - Nuvi 350 - Bel STI Driver - Cobra 29 w/ wilson 1000 - AIM: asianfire -

pronunciation of 3-digit highway

I don't use the TTS voice any more because it would "overpronounce" the three-digit numbered highways. For example, instead of saying "six ninety-five" for I-695, it would say "six hundred and ninety-five". Or, "four hundred and five" instead of "four oh five".

It would be nice if the TTS said the highway names in the local vernacular (for example, in Southern California, use "the" before the number - e.g., "the five" for Interstate 5).

-Dave

Wisconsin Highways

My C340 likes to refer to Wisconsin roads that are designated "WI" as "Wee". So I feel like I'm driving on little roads often.

Re: TTS

dave_cl wrote:

...no one mentioned the price I paid. Was it a bargain or a rip-off?

I'd say rip-off, being that you get an off-the-shelf TTS engine grin

I don't know what engine Garmin uses, but I have limited experience programming an AT&T product and it's not hard at all to tweak for different pronunciations, even accents and words in foreign languages. Garmin could and should have done better.

I experienced that

gardibolt wrote:

My C340 likes to refer to Wisconsin roads that are designated "WI" as "Wee". So I feel like I'm driving on little roads often.

My recent visit to SW "Wee" to Gays Mills & the cheese factory South of Cashton.

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*Keith* MacBook Pro *wifi iPad(2012) w/BadElf GPS & iPhone6 + Navigon*

ummmmmm....Cheeeeeeeeeeeese

That is where I would like to visit!!!!!!!!

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Charley - Nuvi 350 - Bel STI Driver - Cobra 29 w/ wilson 1000 - AIM: asianfire -