#7 Speech becomes garbled when VoiceOver reads a specific passage using Japanese voices

This article was automatically translated. The original article was written in Japanese.

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.

一方、1922（大正11）年の改正鉄道敷設法別表第33号で、「栃木県今市ヨリ高徳ヲ経テ福島県田島ニ至ル鉄道」が計画され、1953（昭和28）年までに会津田島～会津滝ノ原（現・会津高原尾瀬口）まで開通。しかし建設はここで中断されます。

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)

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

This issue can be avoided by switching to another voice, such as the lower-quality standard version of Kyoko or Otoya. However, this is not a permanent solution. I hope Apple will fix it.