The default playback rate of text-to-speech in the web version seems to be slowed down. When I click on the word or a phrase, the speech rate of the model appears to be lower than the default x1 speech. This causes it to sound a bit glitchy which annoys me greatly.
The problem is present across all languages that I checked.
The problem does not seem to be present in the Android mobile app.
The problem is not present in the “Generate audio” feature. Only in TTS playback when clicking on a word or a phrases or clicking the loudspeaker icon.
I checked this with our team and this is actually intended behaviour.
We think that having a slower speed on the widget tts helps with making short words easier to hear. That same speed then gets applied to phrases.
The default tts speed is 1.0 and in the card widget is 0.8.
Another terrible idea from the LingQ team. Why on earth would intermediate and advanced learners want to hear the words at snail pace? Ok for beginner 1 (maybe 2), but then again you wouldn’t want to listen at unnatural speed for too long or it will hinder your learning.
If you’re going to do stuff like that, at least make sure that people can opt out of it instead of having this forced upon them. And where was the announcement??? For months many of us thought it was a bug and reported it on the forum only to be told, as always, that you will “look into it”.
I don’t really understand this idea or this general fragmented behaviour on your product.
Consistency across platforms is key if you care about the mental sanity of your customers. Do you?
We apologize for this. We’re trying to figure out how it happened but it shouldn’t have been done. Word tts should be played at natural speed. We will fix this asap.
