Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
Looking for a text-to-speech reader that can add some personality and pizzazz to its voice? ElevenLabs is expanding its Reader app across the world with support for 32 different languages.
Handling anything from a PDF to an article to a novel, the app can read aloud to you in hundreds of different voices, including such celebrities as Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Sir Laurence Olivier.
Also: 7 Android accessibility features that can make your life easier
Initially launched in June, Reader had been limited to the US, the UK, and Canada. But with the latest expansion, the app is now available in several other countries, with support for Portuguese, Spanish, French, Hindi, German, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Italian, Tamil, and Swedish, as reported by TechCrunch.
The latest flavor of the app is powered by ElevenLabs’ new Turbo 2.5 model, which promises higher-quality and lower-latency conversational artificial intelligence (AI). Thanks to the new model, English text-to-speech is now 25% faster. Hindi, French, Spanish, Mandarin, and 27 other languages are three times faster, while support has been added for Vietnamese, Hungarian, and Norwegian.
Reader has been available only as an iOS app, but the company recently released a version for Android users. The app is free for the first three months, after which a variety of plans are available, ranging from a free version that comes with 10,000 credits per month to a $99-per-month Pro version with 500,000 credits each month.
Also: One of the best e-readers I’ve tested is not a ReMarkable or a Kindle
To give Reader a whirl, download and install the app for iOS or Android. The first time you launch the app, you’ll be prompted to create an account. Then you’ll be asked how you plan to use the app and which voice you prefer as the default.
The Home screen displays a few books for your listening pleasure, including Cinderella, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Tap any title to start listening. You can pause, resume, change the speed, skip ahead, or go back. You can also change the speaking voice.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
From the Home screen, you can add your own content to be read aloud. Tap the plus icon and select your preferred option — writing text, importing the URL for a web page, uploading a file, or scanning a file.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
To check out all the available voices, tap the Voices icon at the bottom of the screen. Here, you can sort through celebrity voices as well as the other conversational voices that come with the app. Tap a voice to learn more about it. You can save a voice as a favorite by hitting the plus icon.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET
ElevenLabs also offers a website where you can copy and paste text to be read aloud, access all the voices, and even generate sound effects such as a car whizzing by, a lion roaring, and a choir of angels.