Bilingual speaker here, how do I stop VoiceOver from constantly changing back to the default voice?

By Rasgueo, 23 November, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hey guys, I have my language and VoiceOver settings set to German. Sometimes I'm reading English content like Reddit or browse Safari and I switch to English from the rotor. However as soon as I touch a toolbar or status bar, or the screen changes like going back a page in Dystopia, VoiceOver constantly switches back to the default German and I have to manually revert to English.
I know it's a longshot, but is there a way to prevent VoiceOver from doing this?

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Comments

By Enes Deniz on Thursday, November 23, 2023 - 05:02

Add another dialect of English to the rotor languages and switch to it if you want to listen to content in English. Another alternative that does work in certain cases is assigning an activity to the app that you would like to use in a different language, but this won't work in Safari, as not every web page you visit is in English. By the way, in many, if not most, cases, it should already be the US English voice of your preference that speaks while navigating websites in English. Though it's Daniel that speaks when I visit applevis.com on my iPhone, and then Eloquence begins speaking if I open a link and go to a page other than the home page.

By Rasgueo on Thursday, November 23, 2023 - 05:02

Thanks for the activity suggestion. I didn't realise that's also an option since I've never played around with it. I'll try if it works with Dystopia.
Regarding switching to a different English dialect, I tried both British and US (I prefer to read using Samantha and I've got only English US atm) but both dialects immediately switch back to German. The problem is not the language of the page in Safari, the problem is, even though the Voice is set to English, VoiceOver is resetting it back to the default German voice when I tab anywhere outside of the English content, like if I tap to check the time for instance.
Another question. Although most of the time Samantha is reading English content, sometimes Daniel shows up to annoy me. Is there a way to stop him from doing that and to set only Samantha to read when it's something in English?

By Siobhan on Thursday, November 23, 2023 - 05:02

Samantha has a love affair with every voice on the phone, no matter what, except Eloquence, but that's outdated and I don't use it. Every other voice from apple anyway is suddenly switched. Pretty sure that's a bug. annnoying, of course.

By Rasgueo on Thursday, November 23, 2023 - 05:02

Yeah, I figured it's a bug. I did play around with activities though, and this seems to solve my issue, if not the bug itself. Now I've got activities for the apps that I use in English, as well as activities in other languages for other apps. Works out even better this way tbh, since Samantha starts reading automatically in Dystopia instead of me having to switch to her from the rotor. It's fully in accord with my lazyness lol.

By Brian on Thursday, November 23, 2023 - 05:02

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech and do what is in my subject line.

Should help.

PS Samantha is a trollop. 🙄