Pyttsx "run" but without "wait"

Question

I'm using pyttsx in my game, but I have encountered a problem - method runAndWait() causes it to stop for a brief period of time to say the queued text. It is a problem, because it messes up my time counting. Is it possible to say a text but without stopping all other activities? Or maybe is there any other text-to-speech converter in python/pygame?

def say(text):
   voices = engine.getProperty('voices')
   engine.setProperty('voice', voices[1].id)
   engine.setProperty('rate', 250)
   engine.say(text)
   engine.runAndWait()

Answer 1

Pyttsx does not have method like runAndNoWait(), but you can run your say(text) function as separate thread to stop blocking your main game thread.

import threading
text = 'Hello world'
threading.Thread(target=say, args=(text,)).start()