Create Your Own Desktop Pronunciation App

Have ever wondered how to pronounce a word but have been unsure who to ask? Now you can ask your Windows desktop or laptop to model a word's pronunciation for you. Here are the mouseless steps to follow.

Why do it mouslessly? A computer mouse is a very convenient tool, but it is not as quick as the keyboard. You can be twice as fast as the average computer user at work if you learn these shortcuts, making you twice as productive. In other words, you will deserve twice the salary of the guy sitting next to you when it comes time to negotiate a pay raise from your boss.

Step 1: Create a new text document with notepad

Press Windows + d to go to your desktop.

Press Ctrl + Spacebar to deselect any previously selected icons.

Press the menu key to open a context menu (the same as a right-click).

Use the arrow keys to navigate to "New," right arrow over to the second menu, and down-arrow to "Text Document."

Step 2: Copy/paste the code and rename the file

Name your new text document "Pronounce" and press enter. Press the menu key again and select "Edit" to open it for editing.

Navigate to your browser window using Alt + Tab.

Navigate within the window using the Tab key.

Keep pressing it until your cursor appears in the text area below.

Dim Message, Pronounce Message=InputBox("Enter a word to hear how it is pronounced","How do you pronounce this word?") Set Pronounce=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice") Pronounce.Rate = -3 Pronounce.Speak Message

Select all (Ctrl + A) the code in the text area above as shown below.

When you select all, the text will be highlighted in blue.

Copy (Ctrl +C) to copy the code. Navigate to your open text document window using Alt + Tab.and then paste (Ctrl + V) the copied code into the blank text document.

This is what it should look like.

Press the Alt key to access the menu bar. Press the down arrow to "Save As" and press "Enter."

On some keyboards, the "Enter" key is called "Return" or simply has an arrow with a right angle. In any case, it is just above the right hand "Shift" key. 

Save the text document as "Pronounce.vbs" Navigate to the desktop to see how it looks.

The file will look like this after you have saved it with its new name on the desktop.

Step 3: Test your new pronunciation app

Make sure that your speakers are on, open the application, and type in a word you want to hear pronounced.

Hit "Enter" and listen to the speech synthesis pronounce the word for you.

Step 4: Be proud of yourself

Not only have you created an application, you did it without a mouse--a true sign of computer proficiency. If English is not your first language, you should be extra-proud of yourself because you followed a complex procedure to its end producing a concrete result--a true sign of reading comprehension and second language competence.

What this exercise demonstrates is that skill with a computer is largely the result of reading and following written instructions. People who cannot or do not read instructions carefully will not succeed with this task.

I checked this blog post for common grammar, punctuation and spelling errors using a free online ESL grammar checker.