Voiceover issues in Greek

By Maria Georgakarakou, 12 August, 2016

Forum
Accessibility Advocacy

Hello. My name is Maria Georgakarakou and I am a visually impaired linguist and musicologist Who has been using Apple devices with VoiceOver since 2009. Moreover, I am a native Greek speaker and have been noticing some lingering problems with the translation of certain words in voiceover. I have written to the Apple accessibility page, but it is very difficult to explain the problems if the technicians who receive my messages do not speak Greek. The problems involve wrong pronunciation of letters, letter combinations and acronyms, wrong translation of punctuation signs and other letters on iOS and macOS keyboards, and wrong translation of certain features on voiceover menus such as the braille input menu.
I would like to know if there is any possible way for me to get in touch with the team who takes care of voiceover translations for Greek. Thank you very much in advance for your help.
Needless to say, I would be happy to provide my email address to whoever needs it.
Thanks again,
Maria Georgakarakou.

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Comments

By Kristen on Saturday, August 13, 2016 - 15:50

Unfortunately I'm not sure where to direct you.

However - I wanted to ask if you had any experience with Greek pronunciations with JAWS and Windows? I only asked due to the fact I've married into a Greek Cypriote family and it'd be nice to perhaps learn a few phrases, etc. (or, at the very least, have my screen reader make an attempt at reading some of the words.) I also have the Duolingo app on my phone, though don't think there are any Greek courses there anyhow but imagine it'd run into the same pronunciation problem.

I'm assuming there must be some way to tell it how to pronounce each Greek symbol, but if there are issues with this in Voice Over I'm not sure if JAWS would be any better.

By Maria Georgakarakou on Saturday, August 13, 2016 - 18:28

Hello and thank you for your answer. I did not help in developing the Greek for windows screen readers. I developed Greek braille and speech for the Braille Lite 2000 about 20 years ago. The pronunciation editor for Apple products really works but you must use the Greek alphabet when you suggest a new pronunciation. The problem I am referring to though, involves the use of wrong words in menus most of the time. Please let me know if I can help you with your windows screen reader though I have not used windows in ages. If you need my email address, just let me know if I can include it in a message in this thread. Meanwhile, many thanks.. Thanks very much. Maria.

By Ken Downey on Sunday, August 14, 2016 - 00:47

I really wish Vo could speak proper Greek as well, as a lot of Bible study tools make reference to the original languages. It does fine with the Hebrew of course, but yeah... The way it handles Greek is awful.

Actually, I am very happy with Greek voiceover. I would never have finished my PhD without it. But there are those problems that could be fixed so easily, and yet... thanks so much.