---
title: "Speech becomes garbled when VoiceOver reads a specific passage using Japanese voices"
description: "A bug report about VoiceOver's Japanese text-to-speech output."
publishedAt: 2026-09-23
platform: iOS 26.7
feedbackId: "FB24902797"
attachments:
  - https://media.feedbackvo.com/12/kyoko.wav
  - https://media.feedbackvo.com/12/otoya.wav
  - https://media.feedbackvo.com/12/o-ren.wav
---

# Overview

When the following passage is read aloud, the pronunciation becomes garbled and unintelligible. Because the pronunciation itself is corrupted, slowing down the speaking rate does not make it understandable.

```text
という構成にできます。Cloudflare自身もほぼこの例を公式発表で示しています。
```

# Steps to reproduce

Paste the passage above into any suitable text field. Then move VoiceOver focus to the passage to have it read aloud. I have attached recordings of the actual speech output for reference.

Affected voices:

- Kyoko (Enhanced)
- Otoya (Enhanced)
- O-ren (Enhanced)

All of these voices exhibit similar garbled pronunciation, but the issue is most noticeable with Otoya (Enhanced).

This issue is not limited to iOS. Reading the same passage on the latest version of macOS produces the same issue. This appears to be an issue with the speech synthesis system shared across Apple products.

# Expected fix from Apple

The passage should be read aloud correctly.

# Temporary workaround

There is currently no temporary workaround for this issue. Switching to another voice, such as the lower-quality standard version of Kyoko or Otoya, does not avoid the problem.