How to use TikTok’s Text-to-Speech feature

It’s just as fun to see what words it can’t pronounce

by Kaitlin Hatton

Jul 27, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

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TikTok’s Text-to-Speech is both a great accessibility feature for people with visual and reading impairments and a tool to create enjoyable content. While Text-to-Speech is available on devices like tablets or phones via the operating system, it’s relatively forward-thinking for a social app like TikTok to make it available within the app. Other platforms like Twitter and Facebook don’t make use of this feature. Instagram does auto-caption stories but only if someone is already speaking in the video.

The feature doesn’t come without controversy, however. TikTok changed the original voice after the actor filed a lawsuit claiming she had never agreed to be featured in the app. The new voice is less of a monotone than the original and seems to be just as popular. Creators use it to narrate their videos, as an accessibility tool, and to have a little fun by seeing what words the bot can (or cannot) pronounce.

If this is something you’re interested in, here’s how to set it up:

Record your video.
When you’ve finished recording, press the Text button at the bottom of the screen.
Type what you want to say and press elsewhere on the screen to finish the text.
Press and hold the text you just typed out.
Select “Text-to-Speech.”

Here’s an example of what TikTok’s Text-to-Speech feature sounds like: