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Online Pronunciation Dictionary

January 18, 2010 10 Comments »

A colleague of mine sent me the link to a site called Forvo, which I found very interesting. According to the website, Forvo is the largest word pronunciation in the world. Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce for you. You can learner pronounce in over 220 from native speakers, sometimes with different .

For example, in the word “lluvia” (rain in ), has 8 different pronunciations. One is pronounced by a female voice and the rest are by male voices from , Columbia, Spain, Bolivia and Chile. The site even shows you a map with small flags for each country, which are links to the audio. You can also help others by recording your pronunciations in your own language.
For example, the database has over 30,000 words pronounced in Spanish and over 48,000 in English. However, it is not a site but an online dictionary that helps you with pronunciation.
A colleague of mine sent me the link to a site called Forvo, which I found very interesting. Forvo claims to be the largest word pronunciation dictionary in the world. Ask for a word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you. You can learner how to pronounce in over 220 languages from native speakers, sometimes with different regional accents.
For example, in Spanish the word “lluvia” (rain in English), has 8 different pronunciations. One is pronounced by a female voice and the rest by male voices from Argentina, Columbia, Spain, Bolivia and Chile. The site even shows you a map with small flags which are links to indicate the country an audio is from. You can also help others by recording your pronunciations in your own language.
For example, the database has over 30,000 words pronounced in Spanish and over 48,000 in English. However, Forvo is not intended for
learning a language but to hear pronunciation from different places.


10 Responses to “Online Pronunciation Dictionary”

  • Commented on January 21, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    Wow. I have never heard of Forvo, but it really looks (and sounds) amazing. This is so great for really figuring out how words are said in different regions. Lately, I’ve been using the machine pronunciations from the spanish dictionary from SpanishDict.com. The pronunciations are pretty good. They have a fabulous iPhone app with pronunciations for all the words and an audio phrase book.

  • Commented on January 21, 2010 at 9:43 am

    Wow. I have never heard of Forvo, but it really looks (and sounds) amazing. This is so great for really figuring out how words are said in different regions. Lately, I’ve been using the machine pronunciations from the spanish dictionary from SpanishDict.com. The pronunciations are pretty good. They have a fabulous iPhone app with pronunciations for all the words and an audio phrase book.

  • Commented on January 31, 2010 at 8:09 am

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  • Commented on January 31, 2010 at 1:09 am

    Authority According,presence particularly contact economic human teach house enable distinction burn quiet ticket experiment outside case season now feature studio road vote fair low grant summer hour feature change individual manager already serious product hand reference show satisfy along relief aim trial central run to along scientific reach public policy too date also soil discover length bus reject possibility membership previous whom persuade white appropriate himself writing political onto better access by writer green external critical length human sun investigate administration tax lean amongst world university remember

  • Commented on January 31, 2010 at 4:56 pm

    Solid blog. I got a lot of good information. I’ve been following this technology for awhile. It’s interesting how it keeps varying, yet some of the core factors remain the same. Have you seen much change since Google made their latest acquisition in the field?

  • Commented on January 31, 2010 at 9:56 am

    Solid blog. I got a lot of good information. I’ve been following this technology for awhile. It’s interesting how it keeps varying, yet some of the core factors remain the same. Have you seen much change since Google made their latest acquisition in the field?

  • Commented on January 31, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    Nice blog. I got a lot of effective info. I’ve been watching this technology for awhile. It’s intriguing how it keeps changing, yet some of the core factors remain the same. Have you seen much change since Google made their latest acquisition in the area?

  • Commented on January 31, 2010 at 10:11 am

    Nice blog. I got a lot of effective info. I’ve been watching this technology for awhile. It’s intriguing how it keeps changing, yet some of the core factors remain the same. Have you seen much change since Google made their latest acquisition in the area?

  • Commented on May 2, 2010 at 4:32 am

    Forvo is great. I like the fact it is user generated content.

    I’m also looking for the written pronunciations of words…if you know where to find these. Eg. Pequeño [pay-kay’-nyo]

  • Commented on May 1, 2010 at 9:32 pm

    Forvo is great. I like the fact it is user generated content.

    I’m also looking for the written pronunciations of words…if you know where to find these. Eg. Pequeño [pay-kay’-nyo]