Free Text-To-Speech and Text-to-MP3 for South African English

How to convert South African English text to MP3

1. Type or paste your text into the box above (up to 3,000 characters per day for free).
2. Choose a voice from the list.
3. Click Read to listen in your browser, or Download as MP3 to save the audio file.

No account, no app and no AWS account are needed. Longer texts are processed in the background; please keep the page open until the audio is ready.

Free limit and premium plans

The free converter allows 3,000 characters per day (about 375 words). Your usage today is shown below the converter and resets every day.

Need more? Premium plans range from a 24-hour pass to monthly and yearly plans with up to 10 million characters. Every yearly plan includes access to the text-to-speech API.

Commercial use of the MP3 files

You may use the MP3 files created with ttsMP3 in commercial and non-commercial projects – for example YouTube voiceovers, podcasts, presentations, e-learning courses, websites and apps. This applies to free and paid usage, and you do not have to credit ttsMP3 (a mention is always appreciated). See commercial use of text to speech for details.

South African English voices

For South African English you can choose between these voices: Ayanda. All of them are Amazon Polly voices and pronounce your text with a native South African English accent. In total ttsMP3 offers 74 regular voices in 41 languages and accents.

Pauses, emphasis, speed and pitch (SSML)

You can control the speech with SSML tags directly in your text. Here are the most useful ones:

Add a break

Mary had a little lamb <break time="1s"/> Whose fleece was white as snow.

Emphasizing words

I already told you I <emphasis level="strong">really like</emphasis> that person.

Speed

For dramatic purposes, you might wish to <prosody rate="slow">slow down the speaking rate of your text.</prosody>
Or if you are in a hurry <prosody rate="fast">you may want to speed it up a bit.</prosody>

Pitch

Do you like synthesized speech <prosody pitch="high">with a pitch that is higher than normal?</prosody>
Or do you prefer your speech <prosody pitch="-20%">with a somewhat lower pitch?</prosody>

Whisper

<amazon:effect name="whispered">If you make any noise,</amazon:effect> she said, <amazon:effect name="whispered">they will hear us.</amazon:effect>

Conversations

You can switch between speakers within one text:

[speaker:Brian] Hello Emma
[speaker:Emma] Hey Brian
[speaker:Brian] How are you doing?
[speaker:Emma] I am fine. May I invite you to a cup of tea?

Please remove diacritical signs from the speaker names: Léa = Lea, Penélope = Penelope.

Need more effects? See our SSML guide with examples or the Amazon SSML tags for Amazon Polly.

Facts about the South African English language:

South African English is the English spoken in South Africa, one of the country's twelve official languages, together with languages such as Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Sotho and Tswana, and South African Sign Language. Although only a minority speaks English as a first language, it is the main language of business, government, higher education and the national media, and it is widely spoken as a second language.

English arrived in South Africa with British settlers at the end of the 18th century. Over time it absorbed many words from Afrikaans and the African languages. Everyday examples are braai for barbecue, bakkie for a pickup truck, robot for a traffic light, lekker for nice or tasty, howzit for hello and now now for soon, while just now can mean anything from a few minutes to a few hours later.

The accent varies with region and background, but many speakers have a clear, slightly clipped pronunciation, an r that is not pronounced after vowels, as in British English, and a typical vowel in words such as kit and bit. Spelling follows British English.

South African English is spoken alongside many other languages in the same family or office, so code switching, moving between English and another language in one conversation, is very common and part of the country's identity.

A South African English voice gives videos, training material and announcements a natural local sound for listeners in South Africa and neighbouring countries, and helps learners get used to the accent and vocabulary.

Supported voice languages: