For the author, before the narrator asks
Open your manuscript and this page lists the names and unusual words a narrator will have to guess at. Type how each one is said, press Hear it to check the respelling out loud, mark it done, and download the pronunciation guide to send with the manuscript. The model runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Ready.
How the list is made
A word with a capital letter in the middle of a sentence that is not a common English word is listed as a name. A capitalised word that only ever starts a sentence is left out unless it appears more than once. A common first name — Sarah, James — is left out too: nobody needs a guide for it.
A lowercase word of four letters or more that is not in a list of about 32,000 common English words is listed as an unusual word. Invented words, rare words and dialect all land here, and so will the odd typo — which is worth knowing too.
Most guides use a respelling with the stressed syllable in capitals: AYL-rick, shiv-AWN. If you know the International Phonetic Alphabet, put it between slashes, /ˈeɪlɹɪk/, and Hear it reads the phonemes directly. The PDF prints respellings; IPA outside the PDF’s character set is kept in the text copy.
Hear it tells you whether a respelling reads the way you mean it. It is a text-to-speech model and it has an accent of its own; the narrator follows your guide, not this voice. The model runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Next steps
Hear your manuscript read back to catch what the eye skips.
When the chapter is recorded, proof-listen it against this same text.
Straight answers
A list of the names, places and unusual words in a book with how each one is said, which an author gives the narrator before recording. It saves the narrator guessing and saves re-recording a chapter when a guess was wrong.
Two rules. A capitalised word in the middle of a sentence that is not a common English word is listed as a name, and a lowercase word of four letters or more that is not in a list of about 32,000 common English words is listed as an unusual word. You can add any word it missed.
Most narrators work from respellings with the stressed syllable in capitals, such as AYL-rick. If you know the International Phonetic Alphabet, put it between slashes and Hear it will read the phonemes directly. The PDF prints respellings; the plain-text copy keeps IPA exactly.