Praat TextGrid to MBROLA
synthesiser format (pho file) converter

Dafydd Gibbon, 2008-08-12

Comments:

  1. The phoneme notation in the Praat annotation should correspond to the phoneme notation in the MBROLA voice you intend to use.
  2. MBROLA requires silent segments to be annoted with '_' (underscore). However, in some environments Praat apparently does not permit the use of underscore, so silent segments should
    1. either be annotated with some other convention, and replaced by '_' in the TextGrid file before conversion,
    2. or be annoted with 'SIL', which will be automatically replaced by '_'.
  3. If you find errors, they may be due to special symbols in the labels. If you suspect this, please replace the special symbols, and let me know which symbols were involved.

Load your TextGrid file into a text editor, then copy and paste the contents into the field below (check this TextGrid example):
Reference list of phonemes for MBROLA voice 'en1':
EN1 a Male British English Voice SAMPA Example p put b but t ten d den k can m man n not l like r run f full v very s some z zeal h hat w went g game tS chain dZ Jane N long T thin D then S ship Z measure j yes i: bean A: barn O: born u: boon 3: burn I pit e pet { pat V putt Q pot U good @ about eI bay aI buy OI boy @U no aU now I@ peer e@ pair U@ poor Database provided by the Edimburgh team distributing the Festival project: Alan Black, Paul Taylor, Roger Burroughes, Alistair Conkie, and Sue Fitt. http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival.html Built on Thu Sep 10 17:26:59 MET DST 1998 Copyright (c) 1998 Faculte Polytechnique de Mons - TCTS lab.