Fixing AI Voice Mispronunciations: Names, Prices, Dates and URLs

Most AI voice mispronunciations fall into a few groups: names the voice has never seen, numbers that can be read more than one way, and web addresses or abbreviations written for the eye. You fix them by previewing what the voice will actually say, letting smart reading handle prices, dates, phone numbers and URLs, and saving a respelling for any name or term in a pronunciation dictionary so it's correct in every future script. This guide walks through each type of problem with examples.

Start with the preview

The fastest way to find a mispronunciation is before you generate audio, not after. VoiceoverWise shows a free preview of exactly what the voice will read once smart reading and your dictionary have been applied. Scan it for three things:

• Any number, date or symbol that has been expanded in a way you didn't intend.
• Names and technical terms that are still in their written form and might be guessed.
• Leftover formatting such as asterisks, bullet characters or hashtags.

If your script came from a document or web page, clean it first with the free TTS script cleaner. Removing stray symbols up front means the preview only shows real problems.

Prices and money

A price like $1,299 can be read several ways by a voice that has no context. Smart reading turns it into "1,299 dollars", and $19.99 into "19 dollars and 99 cents", which is how most people would say it in an ad or a product video.

When you want a different phrasing, write it out the way you want it spoken. For example, if your brand style is "nineteen ninety-nine", write that in the script instead of the figure. A few more tips:

• Avoid ranges written with a dash, such as 10-20. Write "10 to 20" so the voice doesn't hesitate.
• For large round numbers, consider words: "two million" is often clearer than 2,000,000.
• Keep currency symbols attached to the number so smart reading recognises them.

Dates, times and percentages

Dates are a classic source of confusion because formats differ by country. Is 04/05 the fourth of May or April fifth? Smart reading handles ISO dates reliably: 2026-10-12 is read as "October 12, 2026". If you write dates in that format, or spell them out in words, you avoid the ambiguity entirely.

You write	Safer version
04/05/2026	2026-05-04 or May 4, 2026
9-5 Mon-Fri	9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday
Q3	the third quarter
50%	50% (smart reading says "percent")

Times written as "9-5" are especially risky, because they can sound like a score or a subtraction. Spell out the range in words.

Phone numbers, websites and emails

Phone numbers should be read digit by digit so a listener can write them down, and that's what smart reading does. You can make them even easier to follow by grouping the digits the way people say them, with spaces or dashes, and adding a short [pause] before the number so the caller is ready.

Website addresses and emails are read with "dot com" and "at", so [email protected] becomes "support at example dot com". Some tips:

• Leave out "https://" and "www." unless they are needed. Shorter addresses are easier to remember.
• Avoid long paths like example.com/pages/offer-2026. Use a short memorable page instead.
• If your domain contains words that run together awkwardly, add the domain to your pronunciation dictionary with the split you want.

Brand names, people and technical terms

This is the group smart reading can't solve, because only you know how your product, your colleague or your town is pronounced. The fix is a respelling: write the word the way it sounds, using ordinary English spelling.

Good respellings follow a few rules:

1. Split into syllables with hyphens. "Nguyen" might become "Win", "Siobhan" becomes "shi-VAWN".
2. Use common words as anchors. "Quinoa" becomes "KEEN-wah"; "Worcester" becomes "WUSS-ter".
3. Mark stress with capitals. Many voices respond to capitals as emphasis. Test it in the preview.
4. Try two or three versions. Respelling is trial and error. Generate a short test line for each and keep the one that sounds right.

Once a respelling works, save it in the pronunciation dictionary. VoiceoverWise applies the dictionary to every script automatically, so your brand name or presenter's name is right in every video, ad or lesson without you remembering to fix it each time. This is especially useful in e-learning, where the same technical vocabulary appears across dozens of lessons, and in bulk mode, where you might generate up to 200 clips from a single CSV.

Abbreviations and acronyms

Common abbreviations such as e.g., etc. and vs. are expanded by smart reading. Acronyms are trickier, because some are spelled out (FAQ, CEO) and some are said as words (NASA, SaaS). If a voice reads one the wrong way, you have two options:

• Write it the way you want it heard in the script: "S-E-O" for letters, or "sass" for SaaS.
• Add it to the pronunciation dictionary so the fix applies everywhere.

Also watch for words that are spelled the same but said differently depending on meaning, such as "read" (present) and "read" (past), or "live" (a live stream) and "live" (where you live). If the voice picks the wrong one, rephrase the sentence so the meaning is clearer, or swap in a different word.

A repeatable workflow

1. Clean the script and remove formatting.
2. Check the free preview for numbers, dates and addresses.
3. Generate a short test line with any new names or terms.
4. Save working respellings to the pronunciation dictionary.
5. Generate the full voiceover and listen once all the way through.

For more on writing scripts that need fewer fixes in the first place, see how to write a script that sounds natural in text-to-speech. You can read more about smart reading and the dictionary on the features page. To try it on your own tricky words, paste a line into the free text-to-speech tool or start free and build your dictionary.