Using TTS on Android: Punctuation is read aloud

Question

CONTEXT: My application is sending sentences to whatever TTS engine the user has. Sentences are user-generated and may contain punctuation.

PROBLEM: Some users report that the punctuation is read aloud (TTS says "comma" etc) on SVOX, Loquendo and possibly others.

QUESTION:

1. Should I strip all punctuation?
2. Should I transform the punctuation using this kind of API?
3. Should I let the TTS engine deal with the punctuation?

The same user that sees the problem with Loquendo, does not have this problem with another Android application called FBReader. So I guess the 3rd option is not the right thing to do.

Answer 1

I had the same problem with one of my apps.

The input string was:

Next alarm in 10 minutes,it will be 2:45 pm

and the TTS engine would say:

Next alarm in 10 minutes comma it will be 2:45 pm.

The problem was fixed just by adding a space after the comma like this:

Next alarm in 10 minutes, it will be 2:45 pm

This is a stupid mistake, and maybe your problem is more complicated than that, but it worked for me. :)