Text to speech
Convert Arabic articles to audio: a listenable version of your writing
Paste an article and get a listenable version in a clear Arabic voice, downloaded as an MP3 and published wherever you want. For bloggers, publishers and newsletter writers who want their writing to reach people who prefer to listen, and for students who revise with their ears on the way to class.
- Modern Standard Arabic + 18 dialects
- 100 library voices
- Live demo, no sign-up
Free plan: 500͏ credits a month, MP3, personal use. Commercial rights from Starter.
See the workflowThe demo reads up to 200 characters with no sign-up. Paste one of the scripts below to hear it.
Hear it yourself
Ready scripts for the audio version
An intro to place before the article, a newsletter opening, and an analysis paragraph for testing a voice. The first one fits the demo at the top of the page.
Intro for the audio version
Modern Standard Arabicتستمعون إلى مقال «لماذا نؤجّل ما نحب؟» من نشرة الخميس. مدة الاستماع سبع دقائق. نبدأ بسؤال بسيط: متى كانت آخر مرة أنهيت فيها كتابًا بدأته؟
What it says: You are listening to the article "Why do we put off what we love?" from the Thursday newsletter. Listening time is seven minutes. We start with a simple question: when did you last finish a book you had started?
Newsletter opening in the writer's dialect
Kuwaiti Arabicصباح الخير، وياكم نشرة هالأسبوع. اليوم بنتكلم عن شي كلنا نسويه: نفتح التلفون نشوف رسالة وحدة، ونلقى روحنا بعد ساعة للحين نقلّب. شلون صار جذي؟ وشنو الحل؟ خلّونا نشوف.
What it says: Good morning, this is this week's newsletter. Today we are talking about something we all do: we open the phone to check one message and find ourselves still scrolling an hour later. How did that happen, and what is the fix? Let's see.
Paragraph from an analysis piece
Modern Standard Arabicارتفعت أسعار الإيجارات في المدن الكبرى خلال السنوات الثلاث الماضية أسرع من الرواتب. والسبب ليس واحدًا: قلّة المعروض من الشقق الصغيرة، وانتقال الوظائف إلى مراكز المدن، وتأخر مشاريع النقل العام التي كانت ستجعل الضواحي خيارًا عمليًا.
What it says: Rents in the big cities have risen faster than salaries over the past three years. There is no single cause: a shortage of small flats, jobs moving into city centres, and delays to the public transport projects that would have made the suburbs a practical option.
Every recording is real Vocla output in a public library voice, published unedited.
The problem
Readers save your article and never come back to it
A good long article gets opened in a tab and stays there for days.
The reader means to return but never finds twenty minutes in front of a screen. They do find forty minutes in the car on the way to work, and half an hour in the kitchen or at the gym.
Publishers know this, but recording every article with a human voice is not practical for a site that runs five pieces a day, or for a newsletter writer working alone. Recording one article takes more of their time than writing a new paragraph.
The student, meanwhile, has a research paper or a textbook chapter to revise before an exam, and tired eyes. They try the screen reader on their phone, hear a robotic voice stumbling over words without tashkeel, and give up after two minutes.
Why Vocla
What Vocla gives people who publish articles
Arabic reading people listen to until the end
Voices in Modern Standard Arabic and 18 dialects read the article at a rhythm close to a broadcaster's, with control over speed and over the pauses between paragraphs and headings.
A whole article in one or two passes
One generation takes up to 10,000 characters, roughly fifteen hundred Arabic words. Split a longer article in two at a subheading.
Names and terms read correctly
Names of writers, cities, companies and abbreviations keep coming up in your pieces. Add them to the pronunciation dictionary once, and add tashkeel to ambiguous words in one click; the marks do not count toward your credits.
English terms inside the text
Technology and economics articles mix Arabic with English terms. Those words are read inside the Arabic sentence, so you do not have to remove or translate them.
How it works
From a published article to an MP3 file
Step 1
Copy the text, not the link
There is no import from a URL, so copy the body of the article and paste it in. Remove what cannot be heard: image captions, "read also" links, tables and embedded posts.
Step 2
Add what the ear needs
Open with a sentence that introduces the piece: its title and the writer's name. Turn a table into a sentence that sums it up, write large numbers and dates as words, and replace "see the image" with a short description.
Step 3
Choose the voice and generate
Try the voice on the first paragraph, then generate the full article. The cost is shown before generating, so you know what the article will use before you click.
Step 4
Listen once and correct
Follow the text as you listen. The usual slips in articles are proper names and words with two possible readings, and the fix is to add tashkeel to the word and regenerate its paragraph.
Step 5
Download the MP3 and publish it yourself
Upload the file to your site's media library and show it with the audio player your content management system provides, publish it as a podcast episode, or link to it in the newsletter. Vocla does not provide an embeddable player.
Listen to the voices
Voices that fit this job
Public voices from the library whose style suits this work. Play a sample or open a voice for details.
Text to speech in the matching dialects
Cost
What does converting an article cost?
A thousand-word Arabic article is close to six thousand characters, about six minutes of audio. Each thousand characters uses between 800 and 1,200 credits depending on the model, and any tashkeel you add is not counted. The Free plan gives you 500͏ credits a month for personal use, such as converting what you are studying or what you want to hear on the road.
A site that carries advertising, a paid newsletter and a company blog are all commercial use and need the Starter plan at $4.99 a month or higher. Anyone who wants every published piece converted automatically needs the API, which is available on the Business plan at $99 a month and on Enterprise.
Compare plansThe numbers
Quick maths
Worked example: a 5-minute script is about 4,000 to 6,000 credits.
- Free plan: 500͏ credits a month for text to speech, with MP3 downloads, for personal use only.
- Text to speech uses 800 to 1,200 credits per 1,000 characters, depending on the model. 1,000 characters is about one spoken minute, and tashkeel marks are never counted.
- Commercial usage rights and WAV export start with Starter: $4.99 a month with 5,000 credits.
Figures use the current plans and default credit rates. The exact cost is always shown in the app before you confirm.
Questions people ask
How do I convert an Arabic article to an MP3 file?
Copy the article text and paste it into text to speech, choose the voice and dialect, then generate and download the file as an MP3. One generation holds up to 10,000 characters, so if the article is longer, split it into two parts and download two files.
Can I paste the article's URL and have it converted automatically?
No, Vocla does not import from links. You copy the text and paste it in by hand, which also gives you the chance to remove things that do not work in audio, such as image captions and sidebars. Automatic conversion of everything you publish is only possible if a developer on your side builds it with the API, available on the Business and Enterprise plans.
Is there an audio player I can embed on my website?
Vocla does not provide an embeddable player. You download the MP3, upload it to your site and show it with the audio player in the content management system you use, or with the standard audio tag of a web page. Hosting and playback are on your side, so you choose where the file lives and how the player looks.
Is converting articles to audio free?
It is free for personal use within the Free plan's monthly credits, and you can try 200 characters on this page with no sign-up. Publishing the audio on a commercial site, in a paid newsletter or in a sponsored podcast needs the Starter plan or higher, since that is where commercial usage rights are included.
Does it read articles in dialect or only Modern Standard Arabic?
Both. An article written in Modern Standard Arabic is read by a Modern Standard Arabic voice, and for a post written in colloquial Arabic you choose its dialect from 18, including Saudi, Egyptian, Kuwaiti and Lebanese. Write the text in the dialect you want to hear: the voice reads what is written and does not turn Modern Standard Arabic into colloquial speech.
Does it work for studying and listening to summaries?
Yes, and that is personal use, which the Free plan covers. Paste your notes or the chapter you are revising, and choose a calmer pace for new material and a faster one for final revision. Vocla does not import PDF files, so copy the text out first, and bear in mind that equations and tables do not read well and need rewriting in words.
Go deeper
- The tool: Text to speechTurn scripts into lifelike Arabic speech
- Plans and pricesWhat each plan includes, side by side
- Voice libraryPlay real samples by dialect
- How to Convert Long Text to Audio: Articles and Book Chapters Without Seams or Voice DriftRead the guide
- Arabic Text to Speech MP3 Download: How to Get Your File, and When You Need WAVRead the guide
- Arabic English Mixed Text to Speech: How to Get Brand Names and Terms RightRead the guide
The broader use case
Podcasts & content creation
Intros, narration and full episodes for creators.
Read moreأهلًا بكم في حلقة جديدة من بودكاست «حكايات المدينة»، وضيفنا اليوم يحمل قصة لن تسمعوها في أي مكان آخر.
Accessibility
Make written content accessible to everyone.
Read moreيمكنك الآن الاستماع إلى هذا المقال كاملًا، واختيار سرعة القراءة التي تناسبك.
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Start in minutes
Give your content a voice today
Start free with 500͏ credits every month. No card required.
- 500͏ free credits every month
- No card required
- Arabic and English interface