Pronunciation Dictionary for Text to Speech: Get Your Brand Name Right Every Time

01Why AI voices mispronounce brand names

An AI voice reads text the way someone seeing it for the first time would. Familiar words come out right from context, but your brand may be brand-new to it, written in Latin letters inside an Arabic sentence, or open to more than one reading. The result is a polished ad spoiled by the one word that matters most: the company name.

• Coined names: a name like Lumara has no dictionary entry, so the voice guesses the vowels.
• Latin names inside Arabic: is Vocla read "Vok-la" or "Vo-ka-la"? The voice cannot know which you mean.
• Acronyms: KSA might be spelled out or read as a word; you want كيه إس إيه.
• Ambiguous places: الخبر is the city of Al Khobar (الخُبَر), but in an ordinary sentence it can be read as al-khabar, "the news".
• Everyday collisions: جدة is the city Jeddah (جِدّة), while جَدّة means "grandmother", and context does not always settle it.

You could fix each case with tashkeel inside the script, but the problem returns with every new script, and each team member may fix it differently. That is the job of a pronunciation dictionary: fix it once, permanently, for everyone.

02How Vocla's pronunciation dictionary works

The pronunciation dictionary is a list of words, each with the reading every voice should use. You type the word as it appears in your scripts, add a "say it as" spelling, and the rest happens automatically. What sets it apart:

Manage it from the pronunciation drawer in the Text to speech editor or from Settings › Pronunciation. Dictionary words are underlined in the editor, and hovering shows "Pronounced as…", so you can see at a glance which words are covered.

03Adding your brand name, step by step

1. 1Open the editor: go to Text to speech and paste a sentence containing your brand name.
2. 2Listen first: if the voice already says it right, you need no entry. If not, carry on.
3. 3Open the pronunciation drawer: from the editor, or via Settings › Pronunciation.
4. 4Type the word: exactly as it appears in your scripts, such as Vocla, KSA or الخبر.
5. 5Type "say it as": in Arabic letters with tashkeel, such as فُوكْلا, كيه إس إيه or الخُبَر.
6. 6Save and regenerate: the word is now underlined in the editor; play the sentence again to confirm.

You can also start from a single word in your script: double-click it or press Alt+Enter to open the word inspector. It lists the possible readings with short meanings, lets you hear each in your chosen voice, and offers Use here for the current script or Always say it this way, which adds the reading to your dictionary.

04Ready-made entries: brands, places, acronyms and English terms

These are the most useful kinds of entry, with examples of how to write them. Use them as a template for your own list:

Matching is built for how Arabic is actually written. It ignores diacritics and treats alef, ya and ta marbuta variants as the same word, so أحمد and احمد both match one entry. It still finds the word with an attached prefix, any of و ف ب ك ل or ال, so وبفوكلا is read correctly. And it only ever matches whole words, so a short entry never changes part of a longer word.

05Dictionary or tashkeel: which to use when

Both tools fix pronunciation, but for different situations. The rule of thumb: tashkeel for ordinary ambiguous words in one script, the dictionary for names that recur in every script.

Tashkeel marks never count toward Vocla credits, so use them freely. For writing numbers, dates and diacritics inside the script itself, see our guide to writing scripts for AI voice and our article on mixing Arabic and English in text to speech.

06Sharing the dictionary across your team

The dictionary lives in the workspace, not in one person's account. If your marketing lead adds a new product name today, the editor generating tomorrow's ad hears it pronounced the same way without knowing the entry exists. Professional includes three seats, so the whole team works from one dictionary.

• Before a launch: add new product names before anyone writes campaign scripts.
• Moving from another tool: export the names you fixed there, arrange them in a CSV file, and import it.
• Backups: export the dictionary as CSV from time to time, especially before a big campaign.
• Housekeeping: search before adding a name, so the same word doesn't end up with competing entries.
• Dubbing: when you dub videos that mention your company, the same dictionary fixes the Arabic version.

07Common pronunciation mistakes and how to avoid them

• Adding every hard word: the dictionary is for recurring names; a rare word in one script belongs in the word inspector with Use here.
• Writing the reading in Latin letters: spell it in Arabic letters with tashkeel, which an Arabic voice reads more reliably than an English phonetic spelling.
• Ignoring dialect: Checkout may be said differently in Cairo and Riyadh. If you have both audiences, test the entry with a voice in each dialect.
• Conflicting entries: the same name spelled two ways with two readings. Search before you add.
• Not listening after adding: save the entry, then generate a real sentence containing the word.

A good habit is to review the dictionary at the start of every campaign: gather new product, offer and branch names into a list and add them before anyone starts writing, so you don't discover a mistake after twenty ads in three dialects.

08Pre-flight pronunciation checklist

1. 1Brand name: is it in the dictionary, and have you heard it in a real sentence?
2. 2Branches and cities: any that could be read as another word, like الخبر or جدة?
3. 3Acronyms: have you decided between letters and meaning?
4. 4English words: are they read the way your Gulf, Egyptian or Levantine audience says them?
5. 5People's names: did you confirm the CEO's or guest's name with them directly?
6. 6Final listen: have you played the whole file on a phone before publishing?

Pronunciation is one stage in voiceover production, after writing the script and choosing the voice, before generation and review. The full path from brief to final file is in our AI voiceover workflow guide.

Features described are those of Vocla's pronunciation dictionary as of October 2026. Pronunciation tools are free on every plan; generating audio uses credits as usual.