Funny Story

My C340 pronounces the Abreviation for Drive (Dr) as Doctor. So whenever I use it it will tell me to "turn right on Willow Doctor Northwest" I haven't ran inoto the roman numeral thing but I might make a POI file of places with Roman Numeral names just to see what happens.

California designates many older state highways that have been bypassed by modern state Highways as Business Routes to distinguish them from the modern version of the highway (CA 99 as opposed to CA 99 BR). My nüvi 660 pronounces the BR (Business Route) as "bridge."

So I guess there is some advantage to not having text-to-voice capability in my Mio after all

We only speak English, so our options are limited. We either use Jack or Jill or nothing. I would think Garmin could find better voices for English. They clip words, and mis-pronounce. I live just off Heritage Blvd. so I always get a "turn left on HairyRidge BullVard"

for the 550...for that much more money I'd be real unhappy about those errors!

Regards, Ted

I can't decide on the British-English Emily or the Australian English Karen - I keep switching between the two - and I've noticed some of the other things mentioned in the thread too - like the 'bridge' for business route.

I use the Australian Karen, It just sounds better than Jack, Jill, or Emily.

If we're casting votes... I'll go with Australian Karen too. On a recent trip from the Gulf Coast back to Canada, she talked to me all the way. I did notice the odd time that on the odd street name ending in "Dr." that she would say "Derr" instead of Drive but in most cases her pronounciation was good and the directions were dead on.

Karen gets my vote, I am pretty sure she partys. Jill sounds like an uptight pain in the ass, and Emily sounds like a snob. Karen gets me around just fine.

Kch, I switched to Australian Karen, and in my opinion, she does better at pronouncing than either Jack or Jill American. At least she can say Heritage Blvd. correct. I think Karen's going to be my girl.

I can't decide which I prefer, American Jack or Aussie Karen. I've found they all have slight differences in their pronunciation. It's a matter of which one annoys or tickles me the most. If I'm in a serious mood, Jack will do. If I'm in a playful mood, Karen. Or who's in the truck with me, wife likes Jack, I like Karen. I don't care, as long as they don't start to argue, that's when I'll pull the plug! - oh wait, that's when I'll roll the volume switch down. Yeah, that's it.

that sounds like rule 62 to me:
"dont take yourself too damn seriously" lol

My wife makes fun of me.
I switched to the British Female (Who cares abiout her name)
Wife says it's because you can't even trust a mans voice for directions.

I told her that I just like the sound of the voice, and the way things are pronounced.

I added that She sounds sexey, and I can shut her up with the flip of a switch, and ignore her whenever I want, and she won't get mad.

Kids in the back of the van thought it was funny, So did I until later that night.
(lol)

I like Australian Karen too. The American English is too robotic as are the English male voices in all versions.

Karen sounds more natural and sexy.

I wonder what she looks like. LOL.
---
Martin L King BLVD (Baltimore MD) is pronounced "Mah-tin El King Boo-leh-vahd" by Karen not Martin 50 King BLVD.

I cast my vote for the Australian Karen, the voice sounds sincere and helpful.

She sounds so worldly as I'm driving around Williamsburg.

I love a great tour guide, especially one with a great voice. That's what all these voices kind of remind me of. All these replies make me chuckle. Need more funny stories.
And yes, we all needn't take life too seriously.

I've been using Emily for some time now. Last week I decided to use Karen for a while. (I do love the way she pronounces Caulks Ferry Road.) In a few days I'll start using Jill for awhile until I get tired of her or Emily start complaining.

I've discovered that you shouldn't start talking back to or carrying on a conversation with your GPS Unit named Jill if your wife is sitting next to you in the car. It's amazing on how fast she can get jealous. (I guess I probably shouldn't egg her on any more about it either.) I'd probably get into trouble even more if I had used Karen!

What would be cool would be for Garmin to get some celebrity voices...like have Rachel Ray say "Yum-o!" as a proximity alert to a place to eat.

Jill has a distinctive discussed tone in her voice when she has to say "RECALCULATING..." You can almost hear the deep sigh at the end when you have not followed directions for multiple times!

My wife (navigator) gets a big kick out it.

My son also noticed the discuss in Jill's voice when she finds you have not taken her driving advice and she has to recalculate. Sigh... We get a kick out of it.

I like Karen.
If I make a wrong turn, Karen's not like my wife who says, did you forget where you were going.
So Karen gets my vote....

I've also settled on Karen for my c550 voice. I just like the way she pronounces roundabout.

I was going to a restaurant called Seven Bridges Grill and Brewery which is truncated to Seven Bridges Grill & Bre. Upon arrival, Karen said, "Arriving at seven bridges grill and british english." I actually tried it a couple of time since I couldn't understand her the first time.

I have a question,

If you are a man, do you have a woman's voice? If you are a woman, do you have a man's voice? Every single one of my guy friends have a women's voice giving directions. And me, (the only girl of my friends to own a gps) perfer jack's voice. (actually, i liked the british guy but my boyfriend hated it) it seems to be a trend based on what is written above. =)

Jill seems to get PO when she has to re-calculate. I was born in Australia so I'm little partial to Karen.

I'm male and I use the female voice (karen). I love the way she says "recalculating". Plus, unlike my wife, has an on/off switch and it's very gratifying to silence a woman that's giving you directions

Yup, I'm a guy and I like Karen telling me where to go. I think Jill is a bit too stuck up. I'll have to ask my wife which voice she would prefer to see if there is a connection.

State Highway 360 seems to be listed about 10 different ways depending on where you happen to be, but one of those ways is "SH 360," as in "take ramp ahead to SH 360."

The first time I heard Karen say this, it sounded like "take ramp ahead to shthree-60," but now I always hear "take ramp ahead tush 360," and it always makes me grin.

Personally, I'm glad I got a unit that speaks street names. As with many other aspects of map-based guidance (using GPS), this feature is not perfect, but it's obvious from this discussion thread that this particular imperfection can actually be entertaining and even a little endearing. If Karen was 100% predictable, she wouldn't have nearly as much personality (even if it IS only in our heads).

Do I choose female voices because I'm a man? Probably, but I haven't even heard the male voices because they didn't come on my unit and I haven't bothered to download them. So don't just blame men -- unless my c340 was a fluke, it seems Garmin has decided to stack the deck in favor of female voices.

Ummmmmm...........I thought Karen was a canned voice until she ask me if I wanted to stop for coffee somewhere.

and step away from your vehicles!!!

Your wives get jealous; your boyfriend doesn't like Jack's voice?!?!?!?! I think we need to declare Febraury 28th as TURN OFF YOUR GPS DAY :)

Oh, and for your information, the proper response to Jill when she says turn left and you know staright is better is "no thank you I decline" :) Oh, my...did I say that out loud!

Ted

Hey, Ismonop, I happened to be in Grapevine the other day, so I decided to check out your "William D Tate" report. (Not that I don't believe you; I just wanted to hear Karen say William 500 Tate.)

Anyway, I exited off of 114 (westbound) and was waiting at the red light to turn left after Karen told me to turn left onto William D Tate. And yes, I did hear "five hundred" instead of "D," but it sounded like she was saying something else in addition to "five hundred," so while waiting at the light, I pressed the "turn" button (lower-right) so she would repeat her directions, then I pressed it a couple more times.

She was saying, "Turn left on William 'The Five-Hundredth' Tate Avenue."

Is that like KING WILLIAM the 500th? Must be an Australian thing. =)

The Five-Hundredth. LoL

I was traveling down I-35w South towards Austin last weekend. I changed the voice to British Daniel, sounds like Mr Peterman from Seinfeld.
Anyway, they were working on a bridge just outside of Burleson. I decided to try the detour function. I was nearing FM 917 (in Texas FM is Farm to Market road).
Well, Daniel speaks up and tells me to take Federated States of Micronesia Nine Hundred Seventeen. I passed.
Which reminds me I need to report that to Navteq

It is entertaining that they were able not only to program accents but pronunciations as well. I had to smile when I heard Home Depot pronounced in both Aussie and British voices as compared to the American voices.

I have to agree that the Aussie/British voices sound much more human, but I still think that they should get increasingly aggrevated the more they recalculate.

So where can we get more voices? I want to hear James Earl Jones, or perhaps John Cleese. Or maybe even my mother saying "I TOLD you to turn left. What kind of a son are you, doesn't listen to his mother? Do you see that Harry? I tell him to turn left but does he listen to me? No."

I have the same problem with my garmin 7200, Jack or Jim or anyone else for that matter,sometimes I can,t understand their english. Its not all the time just some certain words. I,ve been in three or four different cars that came with a Gps system and the English is as clear and audable has a bell in everyone of them.

How about when calling out Dr. instead of drive, they call the street Doctor..

ooh...I don't know if I could handle it being in my mother's voice. I love her and all, but... lol

This is probably the funniest topic on this site!! I'd like to hear the ladies point of view! Especially if it sounds like Karen (from what I've read)!

My girlfriend and I also like the Karen voice.

We took a road trip to the Pacific Northwest last week, and we were driving on some secondary roads in Washington - which are labeled with a "WA," like WA-216.

The verbal directions we got from Karen were in the form, "Turn right on Western Australia two hundred sixteen."

I haven't tried the other voices on the gps yet. I am inspired to do that and will when i get to it. I do always miss turns especially on two lane both way roads. I will be in the right lane and i will have to turn left. Well the voice will either chime in right as i pass the turn lane or i will not be in the correct lane and have no time to switch. Needless to say i end up going to the next intersection to make a U turn.

Hey Richie (Scooter2), if you don't care about the "text-to-speech" feature (i.e., having the street names spoken by a "computerized" voice), you can choose one of the "pre-recorded" voices (which are the ones that don't have a person's name associated with them, like "American English"). The pre-recorded voices have a more limited vocabulary, but they should sound a lot better, probably a lot like the ones you've heard in other cars.

I prefer Karen also, I think she is the most natural sounding.

Just a little trivia/history on the subject. I am aquainted with one of the pioneers in the technology that makes this available - TTS (text-to-speech), and also speech recognition. Dimitri Kanevsky - click he is amazing fellow who is deaf and for all practical purposes mute, however he can lip-read at least five languages.
I also volunteered to help train a system that responds to speech commands while differentiating those commands from a normal conversation. They needed people that were raised and have lived in different areas of the country for voice modeling. It is currently available on some Honda models, and it is an incredible system. It is really interesting to see how this technology comes to live and I am glad to have been a tiny part of it.

A few months ago i was going too fast too make my turn...she Said "Turn Right" and i went about 100 feet past the turn and backed up to attempt to turn right where she told me too. To my suprise after traveling about 20 feet on the correct road she said "Wandering to baker street". I laughed at my self and wondered if the unit actually knew i had passed my turn before i realized the road i was on, and missed the turn to, was called Wandering rd.