text-to-speech-training

Various data for text-to-speech (TTS) training.

Harvard sentences

Original IEEE Harvard sentences

The IEEE Harvard sentences is a collection of 720 phonemically balanced short sample phrases in English.

Background info

Harvard-NGSL sentences

Kakeru Yazawa has produced a subset of 50 IEEE Harvard sentences from the full list of 720. These are phonemically balanced sentences for English learner speech corpora named the Harvard-NGSL sentences. These comprise core high-frequency vocabulary words for second language English learners were selected based on the New General Service List (NGSL), and are thus learner-oriented, unlike most other phoemically balanced materials which contain low-frequency and low-familiarity words that are of limited use for learners.

Published in Yazawa, Kakeru. (2022). Harvard-NGSL sentences for English learner speech corpora. 10.1109/O-COCOSDA202257103.2022.9998002.

Harvard stories

In 2023, Adam Twardoch used ChatGPT to convert the Harvard-NGSL sentences and two sets of 60 original IEEE Harvard sentences into short stories. These short stories use the original vocabulary, but are formatted for more fluent reading.

Other texts


Compiled by Adam Twardoch