Russian screen readers

[moria923.livejournal.com]

Since I happen to be blind, I use a screen reader to convert the text on my computer screen to speech. Though I've been monitoring this community for awhile, it's been frustrating because my screen reader can't read the Russian, so I hear something like: "How do you translate dash, dash, dash . . . "

Does anyone know of any technology that could help me? I know that JAWS, the most popular screen reader and the one that I now use, does have a Russian version, but the company told my hussband that the Russians won't let it be sold here because of copyright issues. I realize that in the foreseeable future there's little hope of finding something that can easily switch between Russian and English, to read, for instance, most of the posts in this community. But if I could find a screenreader that can read Cyrillic, then I can read Russian communities on LJ and establish some friendships with Russian speakers. I guess to do that I'd have to set up a separate Russian LJ because the Russian screen reader probably wouldn't be able to deal with English.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Comments

[corvus-sky.livejournal.com]

I know for a fact that in germany they have programms that do both but i do not know the company ,lookin to that it may just be a us problem .
R-

[vova-l.livejournal.com]

http://www.vector-ski.com/vecs/govorilka/
This is a Russian software that reads Russian texts and has many functions. Unfortunately they do not have an English web page.
However their download page is pretty simple and you can follow links there
http://www.vector-ski.com/vecs/govorilka/download.htm
If you have any problems, respond to this comment, I'll try to help you.
Good luck!

[moria923.livejournal.com]

This looks potentially promising. I couldn't tell from the link what the purposes of Govorilka are. I couldn't get enough information to know whether it will allow me to read a Russian Web page, for instance, or whether it's more like Microsoft Agent seems to be (to be used by Web developers more than readers). If it's used to create audiobooks, as one of the links said, maybe I can get my hands on some of the audiobooks. Thanks so being so prompt in responding!

[vova-l.livejournal.com]

Developers write that the software can read both HTML and DOC, so probably it can work with the web pages. However they also write that the user should copy the text and paste it into the programme window. If this works for you, then probably you could use Govorilka to read Russian blogs. Obviously it is not for creating audiobooks (though you can save the text to MP3 file), but basically for reading the text (or synthesis of voice from the text).
Anyway to make some software read Russian text you need some text-to-speech engine, and some are available from the download page.

[dyrbaglyz.livejournal.com]

You may want to start from this
http://www.microsoft.com/MSAGENT/downloads/user.asp#tts
Probably even your reader can use Russian text-to-speech engine from Microsoft.

[moria923.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I went to the link yesterday and couldn't determine whether MS Agent would be helpful or not. From the product description, it seems like it's for Web site developers, rather than for someone trying to read other people's Web sites (like LJs). But thanks so much for taking the time to write! Let me know if you know differently about Agent.

[dyrbaglyz.livejournal.com]

I don't know about Agent itself, but one of its parts is Text-to-Speech engine, which (ideally) supposed to be used by any other Windows applications for text to voice convertion. On this section "Text-to-speech engines", where this link directly refers to, you can download freely available Russian "voice" for text-to-speech engine. Here is a direct link:
http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/agent2/lhttsrur.exe
I assume that probably with this component installed you can make your screen reader speak Russian, but, of course, I am not sure.
P.S. Few years ago I was reviewing Russian text-to-speech engines for Windows. It was so, that any program needs "underlying" text-to-speech engine, and at this time only two were available - this free one distributed through the microsoft.com and commercial one from Digalo (http://www.digalo.com/). Second one is said to be better in the quality of pronunciation, but, basicaly, this is the only major difference.

[crculver.livejournal.com]

If more people cared about semantic markup and surrounded their Russian language text with <span xml:lang="ru" lang="ru">...</span>, then your screen reader probably wouldn't have any problems. Unfortunately, most of the people here don’t know about making their posts accessible for people with disabilities. In my ideal world, people would be required by law to know semantic markup, but that’s just a beautiful fantasy.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

I'm a novice, but it seems you've got a redundancy in your markup text: why the double writing of 'lang="ru"'?

Thanks for clarifying. I'll try to remember to put the markup when I use cyrillic (which is rare, I usually type phonetically).

[moria923.livejournal.com]

Yes, that would probably help a lot, provided the screen reader itself knew both Russian and english.

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

Can your screen reader read transliterated Cyrillic? Or does it just come out, you know, weird?

[moria923.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who has sent me emails in transliterated Cyrillic. Left to its own devices, the screen reader makes it sound like gibberish. But I can read it letter by letter and then write it out for myself in Cyrillic Braille. It's a little tedious, but it works. Thanks for all of your interest and suggestions!

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Whoa- cyrillic braille? I must know more! Unfortunately I doubt I'll see your response here until over a week from now since I'm leaving tomorrow...