Computer synthesis of Mandarin

Mandarin was synthesized using a computer-controlled speech synthesizer. The four tones and the neutral one in the unstressed syllable were constructed by varying the pitch of the phoneme string. A passage and a list of single syllables were generated for an experiment. It was shown that subjects could hear the synthesized passage with an encouraging intelligibility score of over 70% after less than an hour of exposure to the sounds. The results also showed that the quality of the voice could be further improved by proper manipulation of the pitch.