Specifying another language for specific words

<lang>

This tag is supported by generative, long-form, neural, and standard TTS formats.

Specify another language for a specific word, phrase, or sentence with the <lang> tag. Foreign language words and phrases are generally spoken better when they are enclosed within a pair of <lang> tags. To specify the language, use the xml:lang attribute. For a complete list of available languages, see Languages in Amazon Polly.

Unless you apply the <lang> tag, all of the words in the input text are spoken in the language of the voice specified in the voice-id. If you apply the <lang> tag, the words are spoken in that language.

For example, if the voice-id is Joanna (who speaks US English), Amazon Polly speaks the following in the Joanna voice without a French accent:

<speak>
     Je ne parle pas français.
</speak>

If you use the Joanna voice with the <lang> tag, Amazon Polly speaks the sentence in the Joanna voice in American-accented French:

<speak>
     <lang xml:lang="fr-FR">Je ne parle pas français.</lang>.
</speak>

Because Joanna is not a native French voice, pronunciation is based on her native language, US English. For example, although perfect French pronunciation features an uvual trill /R/ in the word français, Joanna's US English voice pronounces this phoneme as the corresponding sound /r/.

If you use the voice-id of Giorgio, who speaks Italian, with the following text, Amazon Polly speaks the sentence in Giorgio's voice with an Italian pronunciation:

<speak>
     Mi piace Bruce Springsteen.
</speak>

If you use the same voice with the following <lang> tag, Amazon Polly pronounces Bruce Springsteen in Italian-accented English:

<speak>
     Mi piace <lang xml:lang="en-US">Bruce Springsteen.</lang>
</speak>

This tag can also be used as a substitute for the optional DefaultLangCode option when synthesizing speech. However, doing so requires that you format your text using SSML.