If you use Google’s Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine a lot, then you’ve probably noticed that there have been a lot of small to major updates these past few months. You got new voices, a more natural speech pattern for some of those voices, and a lot of bug fixes and improvements. This time around, it’s not a major update but it’s not exactly small either. Version 3.9.6 brings two more supported languages into the fold and the system is now integrated into the text select options.

If you speak either (or both) Vietnamese and Swedish, you’ll be happy to know that the update adds support for those two languages. You can select them manually through the settings. But if you chose either language as your phone’s default one, it will automatically add it to the Google TTS engine of course.

The other major thing is that TTS is now integrated into the floating text selection toolbar. So if you highlight a certain text, a toolbar will automatically appear, and options include the usual copy, share, select all, etc. But in the overflow menu where Assist (Now on Tap), Google Translate and other options appear, you’ll also now see the Google Text-to-Speech Engine option, which means it will read aloud the text you highlighted. This will be handy if you’re too tired to read a long email or if you want to make sure you’re pronouncing something right.

tts update

Unfortunately, the Google TTS Version 3.9.6 isn’t available yet at the Google Play Store. It was initially part of the Android N Developer Preview 3, but some people managed to extract the APK and so now you can apply it to Android 4.4 devices onwards. But since the floating text selection toolbar is a new feature to Marshmallow, older versions will one get the two new languages.

VIA: Android Police

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