New Voices

[DavidHicks88]

So, not sure if it's just me, but in the past few days, they've suddenly added a LOT of new voices (not just the really annoying, being-strangled female one). I would guess it's maybe 20 new voices. Crazy. Several of them are actually pretty good, particularly the male ones, and they seem to take pauses now at natural points in the sentences. A few are less good, maybe a couple of female ones and child voices (actually one of the child voices, a little girl I guess, is almost impossible to understand, since everything sounds like a high tone).
There's inevitably some mistakes, some wrong letters (点 pronounced gian or guan I think), and missing combinations (有点儿 pronounced 'you dian er' instead of 'youdiar'). I'm reporting each one of these errors as I come across them, I suggest you all do the same (as well as complaining about voices you don't like!)...

What do you all think about them?

[roy]

I like them! Obviously, they have their own issues, but it's way better than the robotic voices from before. It's a good step for the course for a language that emphasizes a lot on tones and pronunciation, so I appreciate it a lot

[melodious33]

The errors are annoying, but I am overall very happy with this update. Some of the voices sound quite natural, and I feel like it's helping me learn to understand and speak words instead of only memorize duolingo sounds, if that makes sense.

[Madame Sensei]

As a teacher (not of Mandarin, but of French, Spanish, and Japanese), I do enjoy the voices. I get a kick out of how different they are between the languages. When Duolingo Stories finally rolls out in Chinese, the voices will be different still (because they will be actual actors).

When the voices rolled out in Japanese, there were a LOT of wrong pronunciations, just because sometimes a character is pronounced in a more Chinese-y way, and sometimes in a more Chinese-y way but from 1000 years ago, and sometimes in a more Japanese-y way. I know that all of those iterations had to be put in by hand., for each voice So I assume the same thing will happen here. Keep reporting, and you will help other users! (Other users like me, who don't know enough Chinese yet to know when 得 has a different tone, for example.) And I personally thank you for reporting!

[Jim606185]

They add a bit of variety. There is a similar spread of voices to those in French and German. I haven't got far enough in the course to tell if the tones all sound high on the child voice. (This is my first post on here)

[Deleted User 5745]

[mention]Dave852784[/mention] Frankly, having Junior shriek at me in Chinese is the most annoying thing ever. I even have to turn the phone down so the neighbours don't think I've turned into an insolent brat.

[MoniqueMaRie]

@Dave852784 Frankly, having Junior shriek at me in Chinese is the most annoying thing ever. I even have to turn the phone down so the neighbours don't think I've turned into an insolent brat.

... and the voices have already improved (at least in EN-FR). At the beginning they were considerably more unbearable.

[Deleted User 4833]

@Dave852784 Frankly, having Junior shriek at me in Chinese is the most annoying thing ever. I even have to turn the phone down so the neighbours don't think I've turned into an insolent brat.

Having Junior shriek in any language is super annoying.

[Deleted User 4833]

@Dave852784 Frankly, having Junior shriek at me in Chinese is the most annoying thing ever. I even have to turn the phone down so the neighbours don't think I've turned into an insolent brat.

... and the voices have already improved (at least in EN-FR). At the beginning they were considerably more unbearable.

At least one of the voices in EN-FR sounds so bored. But I guess it's better than shrieking.