--- name: text-to-speech-voices title: Languages and voices description: The IBM Watson® Text to Speech service supports a variety of languages, voices, and dialects. For different languages, the service offers female voices, male voices, or both. Each voice uses appropriate cadence and intonation for its dialect. last-updated: 2026-06-04 --- > ## Documentation Index > The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?format=markdown > The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt > Use these files to discover more information as needed. # Languages and voices {: #voices} The IBM Watson® Text to Speech service supports a variety of languages, voices, and dialects. For different languages, the service offers female voices, male voices, or both. Each voice uses appropriate cadence and intonation for its dialect. {: shortdesc} All of the service's voices use neural voice technology. Neural voice technology uses multiple Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to predict the acoustic (spectral) features of the speech. The DNNs are trained on natural human speech and generate the resulting audio from the predicted acoustic features. During synthesis, the DNNs predict the pitch and phoneme duration (prosody), spectral structure, and waveform of the speech. Neural voices produce speech that is crisp and clear, with a very natural-sounding, smooth, and consistent audio quality. ## Supported languages and voices {: #language-voices} The service offers three types of voices with different qualities and capabilities: - *Natural voices* provide advanced performance in terms of naturalness and expressiveness. These voices use various techniques to provide an edge over Expressive voices. For a list of all natural voices, see [Natural voices](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-voices&format=markdown#language-voices-natural). - *Expressive neural voices* offer natural-sounding speech that is exceptionally clear and crisp. Their pronunciation and inflections are natural and conversational, and the resulting speech offers extremely smooth transitions between words. They also support the use of additional features that are not available with enhanced neural voices. For a list of all expressive voices, see [Expressive neural voices](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-voices&format=markdown#language-voices-expressive). - *Enhanced neural voices* achieve a high degree of natural-sounding speech and support most service features. For a list of all enhanced neural voices, see [Enhanced neural voices](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-voices&format=markdown#language-voices-enhanced-neural). The following pages provide more information about the voices and their technology: - For a blog that introduces the expressive voices, see [Is your conversational AI setting the right tone?](https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/is-your-conversational-ai-setting-the-right-tone){: external}. - For more information about the service's neural voice technology, see [The science behind the service](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-science&format=markdown). ### Language support by type of voice {: #language-voices-by-type} Table 1 shows the service's support for languages by type of voice. The following topics list the available languages and voices for each voice type. | Language | Natural voices | Expressive neural voices | Enhanced neural voices | |----------|:---------------:|:-----------------------:|:-----------------------| | Dutch \n (Netherlands) | | | ✔ | | English \n (Canadian) | ✔ | | | | English \n (United Kingdom) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | | English \n (Australian) | ✔ | ✔ | | | English \n (United States) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | | French \n (Canadian) | | | ✔ | | French \n (France) | | | ✔ | | German | | | ✔ | | Italian | | | ✔ | | Japanese | | | ✔ | | Korean | | | ✔ | | Portuguese \n (Brazilian) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | | Spanish \n (Castilian) | | | ✔ | | Spanish \n (Latin American) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | | Spanish \n (South American) | | | ✔ | {: caption="Language support by type of voice"} ### Natural voices {: #language-voices-natural} Table 2 lists and provides audio samples for all available Natural voices. The *Availability* column indicates whether each voice is generally available (GA) for production use or beta. The column also indicates whether each voice is available for [IBM Cloud]{: tag-ibm-cloud}, [IBM Cloud Pak for Data]{: tag-cp4d}, [IBM Software Hub]{: tag-teal}, or all 3 of them (no product version is cited). | Language | Availability | Voice / Gender | Audio sample | |----------|:-------------------:|:--------------:|:------------:| | English \n (Australian) | GA | `en-AU_HeidiNatural` \n Female | ![en-AU_HeidiNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-AU_HeidiNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (Australian) | GA | `en-AU_JackNatural` \n Male | ![en-AU_JackNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-AU_JackNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (Canadian) | GA | `en-CA_HannahNatural` \n Female | ![en-CA_HannahNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-CA_HannahNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United Kingdom) | GA | `en-GB_ChloeNatural` \n Female | ![en-GB_ChloeNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-GB_ChloeNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United Kingdom) | GA | `en-GB_GeorgeNatural` \n Male | ![en-GB_GeorgeNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-GB_GeorgeNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_EllieNatural` \n Female | ![en-US_EllieNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_EllieNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_EmmaNatural` \n Female | ![en-US_EmmaNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_EmmaNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_EthanNatural` \n Male | ![en-US_EthanNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_EthanNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_JacksonNatural` \n Male | ![en-US_JacksonNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_JacksonNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_VictoriaNatural` \n Female | ![en-US_VictoriaNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_VictoriaNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | Portuguese \n (Brazilian) | GA | `pt-BR_CamilaNatural` \n Female | ![pt-BR_CamilaNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/pt-BR_CamilaNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | Portuguese \n (Brazilian) | GA | `pt-BR_IsabelaNatural` \n Female | ![pt-BR_IsabelaNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/pt-BR_IsabelaNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | Portuguese \n (Brazilian) | GA | `pt-BR_LucasNatural` \n Male | ![pt-BR_LucasNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/pt-BR_LucasNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (Latin American) | GA | `es-LA_AlejandroNatural` \n Male | ![es-LA_AlejandroNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-LA_AlejandroNatural.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (Latin American) | GA | `es-LA_DanielaNatural` \n Female | ![es-LA_DanielaNatural sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-LA_DanielaNatural.wav){: audio controls} | {: caption="Natural languages and voices"} ### Expressive neural voices {: #language-voices-expressive} Table 3 lists and provides audio samples for all available expressive neural voices. The *Availability* column indicates whether each voice is generally available (GA) for production use or beta. The column also indicates whether each voice is available for [IBM Cloud]{: tag-ibm-cloud}, [IBM Cloud Pak for Data]{: tag-cp4d}, [IBM Software Hub]{: tag-teal}, or all 3 of them (no product version is cited). - Expressive neural voices support additional features that are not available with other types of voices. These features include additional speaking styles, automatic emphasis of interjections, and emphasis of specified words. For more information, see [Modifying speech synthesis with expressive neural voices](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-synthesis-expressive&format=markdown). - When used with the SSML `` element, expressive voices support only percentage values for the `rate` and `pitch` attributes. For more information, see [The `` element](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-elements&format=markdown#prosody_element). Expressive neural voices determine sentiment from context and automatically use the proper intonation to suit the text. To produce the most natural-sounding prosody, expressive neural voices need to consider the context of all words and phrases of a sentence. Expressive voices are therefore more compute-intensive and have slightly higher latency than other types of voices. The initial response for a synthesis request that uses an expressive voice might take a fraction of a second longer (for example, a few hundred milliseconds) to arrive. The total response time for the request to complete is also longer. To minimize the latency and response time for an expressive voice, use shorter sentences wherever possible. {: tip} | Language | Availability | Voice / Gender | Audio sample | |----------|:-------------------:|:--------------:|:------------:| | English \n (Australian) | GA | `en-AU_HeidiExpressive` \n Female | ![en-AU_HeidiExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-AU_HeidiExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (Australian) | GA | `en-AU_JackExpressive` \n Male | ![en-AU_JackExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-AU_JackExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_AllisonExpressive` \n Female | ![en-US_AllisonExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_AllisonExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_EmmaExpressive` \n Female | ![en-US_EmmaExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_EmmaExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_LisaExpressive` \n Female | ![en-US_LisaExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_LisaExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_MichaelExpressive` \n Male | ![en-US_MichaelExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_MichaelExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United Kingdom) | GA | `en-GB_GeorgeExpressive` \n Male | ![en-GB_GeorgeExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-GB_GeorgeExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | Portuguese \n (Brazilian) | GA | `pt-BR_LucasExpressive` \n Male | ![pt-BR_LucasExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/pt-BR_LucasExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (Latin American) | GA | `es-LA_DanielaExpressive` \n Female | ![es-LA_DanielaExpressive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-LA_DanielaExpressive.wav){: audio controls} | {: caption="Expressive neural languages and voices"} ### Enhanced neural voices {: #language-voices-enhanced-neural} Table 4 lists and provides audio samples for all available enhanced neural voices. The *Availability* column indicates whether each voice is generally available (GA) for production use or beta. The column also indicates whether each voice is available for [IBM Cloud]{: tag-ibm-cloud}, [IBM Cloud Pak for Data]{: tag-cp4d}, [IBM Software Hub]{: tag-teal} or all 3 of them (no product version is cited). | Language | Availability | Voice / Gender | Audio sample | |----------|:-------------------:|:--------------:|:------------:| | Dutch \n (Netherlands) | Beta | `nl-NL_MerelV3Voice` \n Female | ![nl-NL_MerelV3Voive sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/nl-NL_MerelV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United Kingdom) | GA | `en-GB_CharlotteV3Voice` \n Female | ![en-GB_CharlotteV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-GB_CharlotteV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United Kingdom) | GA | `en-GB_KateV3Voice` \n Female | ![en-GB_KateV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-GB_KateV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_AllisonV3Voice` \n Female | ![en-US_AllisonV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_AllisonV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_EmilyV3Voice` \n Female | ![en-US_EmilyV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_EmilyV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_HenryV3Voice` \n Male | ![en-US_HenryV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_HenryV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_KevinV3Voice` \n Male | ![en-US_KevinV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_KevinV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_LisaV3Voice` \n Female | ![en-US_LisaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_LisaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_MichaelV3Voice` \n Male | ![en-US_MichaelV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_MichaelV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | English \n (United States) | GA | `en-US_OliviaV3Voice` \n Female | ![en-US_OliviaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/en-US_OliviaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | French \n (Canadian) | GA | `fr-CA_LouiseV3Voice` \n Female | ![fr-Ca_LouiseV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/fr-CA_LouiseV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | French \n (France) | GA | `fr-FR_NicolasV3Voice` \n Male | ![fr-FR_NicolasV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/fr-FR_NicolasV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | French \n (France) | GA | `fr-FR_ReneeV3Voice` \n Female | ![fr-FR_ReneeV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/fr-FR_ReneeV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | German | GA | `de-DE_BirgitV3Voice` \n Female | ![de-DE_BirgitV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/de-DE_BirgitV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | German | GA | `de-DE_DieterV3Voice` \n Male | ![de-DE_DieterV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/de-DE_DieterV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | German | GA | `de-DE_ErikaV3Voice` \n Female | ![de-DE_ErikaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/de-DE_ErikaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Italian | GA | `it-IT_FrancescaV3Voice` \n Female | ![it-IT_FrancescaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/it-IT_FrancescaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Japanese | GA | `ja-JP_EmiV3Voice` \n Female | ![ja-JP_EmiV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/ja-JP_EmiV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Korean | GA | `ko-KR_JinV3Voice` \n Female | ![ko-KR_JinV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/ko-KR_JinV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Portuguese \n (Brazilian) | GA | `pt-BR_IsabelaV3Voice` \n Female | ![pt-BR_IsabelaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/pt-BR_IsabelaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (Castilian) | GA | `es-ES_EnriqueV3Voice` \n Male | ![es-ES_EnriqueV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-ES_EnriqueV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (Castilian) | GA | `es-ES_LauraV3Voice` \n Female | ![es-ES_LauraV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-ES_LauraV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (Latin American) | GA | `es-LA_SofiaV3Voice` \n Female | ![es-LA_SofiaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-LA_SofiaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | | Spanish \n (North American) | GA | `es-US_SofiaV3Voice` \n Female | ![es-US_SofiaV3Voice sample](https://watson-developer-cloud.github.io/doc-tutorial-downloads/text-to-speech/samples-latest/es-US_SofiaV3Voice.wav){: audio controls} | {: caption="Enhanced neural languages and voices"} The Spanish Latin American and North American `Sofia` voices are essentially the same voice. The most significant difference concerns how the two voices interpret a $ (dollar sign). The Latin American version uses the term *pesos*; the North American version uses the term *dólares*. Other minor differences might also exist between the two voices. {: note} ## Creating a custom model {: #customize-model} When you synthesize text, the service applies language-dependent pronunciation rules to convert the ordinary spelling of each word to a phonetic spelling. The service's pronunciation rules work well for common words, but they can yield imperfect results for unusual words, such as terms with foreign origins, personal names, and abbreviations or acronyms. If your application's lexicon includes such words, you can use the customization interface to specify how the service pronounces them. A custom model is a dictionary of words and their translations. You create a custom model for a specific language, not for a specific voice. So a custom model can be used with any voice for its specified language. For example, a custom model that you create for the `en-US` language can be used with any US English voice. It cannot, however, be used with an `en-GB` or `en-AU` voice. Customization is available for all languages. All voices support the use of both standard International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and IBM Symbolic Phonetic Representation (SPR) phonetic symbols for word customization. For more information, see [Understanding customization](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/text-to-speech?topic=text-to-speech-customIntro&format=markdown). ## Creating a custom voice {: #customize-voice} [IBM Cloud]{: tag-ibm-cloud} Premium customers can work with IBM to train a new custom voice for their specific use case and target market. Creating a custom voice is different from customizing one of the service's existing voices. A custom voice is a unique new voice that is based on audio training data that the customer provides. IBM can train a custom voice with as little as one hour of training data. To request a custom voice or for more information, complete and submit this [IBM Request Form](https://forms.monday.com/forms/5fd92c54536a18f9afab8a47404bf828?r=use1){: external}.