NVDA Breaks Words At Apostrophes with Speak Typed Words

[btman16]

Hello,

On NVDA latest Master, using NVDA+3 for the Speak typed words function, if I'm in an edit box and I type a word such as it's that contains an apostrophe, NVDA breaks the word at the apostrophe.
Example:

1. Press NVDA+3 for "speak typed words".
2. When it's on, open up a text editor such as Notepad.
3. Type a word with an apostrophe.
   Actual result: if you type it's, with an apostrophe before the s, NVDA reads it s.
   Expected: NVDA would say it's, when space is pressed and not break the word at the apostrophe.

Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to any input you are willing to provide.

Thanks,

Brandon

[Qchristensen]

Just noting this issue is still present. NVDA speaking typed words treats anything that isn't a letter as a word break - this is mostly correct, but apostrophe more often is used as a contraction in a word, as in don't, won't or it's, rather than punctuation.

[btman16]

Hi, Yes, I think that this issue is still present as I tested it at various stages. I think it's still broken right now, as I had "Speak Typed Words" on when I was typing this and it broke a word at the apostrophe. Thanks, Brandon

…

On 8/9/18, Quentin Christensen ***@***.***> wrote: Just noting this issue is still present. NVDA speaking typed words treats anything that isn't a letter as a word break - this is mostly correct, but apostrophe more often is used as a contraction in a word, as in don't, won't or it's, rather than punctuation. -- You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #6215 (comment)

-- “Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are.” – J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare

[Brian1Gaff]

Yes. I also noticed when trying this on the latest beta snap that sometimes I never hear the apostrophe, on further checking the espeak appears to be misbehaving sometimes and lopping the last bit of any speech off in Espeak, though not tried any other version other than speech player in Espeak which is fine under these conditions and showed the problem for this ticket. Does anyone know if there is a truncating ticket on the nvda version of the latest espeak still open. Also I noticed newsletter is back saying newslitter again.. sigh. Brian

[btman16]

Hi, That's not an NVDA issue, that happens in eSpeak on Linux too. Thanks, Brandon

…

On 8/10/18, Brian Gaff ***@***.***> wrote: Yes. I also noticed when trying this on the latest beta snap that sometimes I never hear the apostrophe, on further checking the espeak appears to be misbehaving sometimes and lopping the last bit of any speech off in Espeak, though not tried any other version other than speech player in Espeak which is fine under these conditions and showed the problem for this ticket. Does anyone know if there is a truncating ticket on the nvda version of the latest espeak still open. Also I noticed newsletter is back saying newslitter again.. sigh. Brian -- You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #6215 (comment)

-- “Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are.” – J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare

[Qchristensen]

NVDA breaks words at apostrophe's using eSpeak NG, Windows OneCore Voices and SAPI 5. So I think it is likely to be NVDA. It's possible that other implementations (as Brandon indicated it happens on Linux) also used the same logic, that is any non-alphanumeric character breaks a word.

The other issues Brian mentioned are separate to this so should be raised in other issues.

[btman16]

Hi, Actually, Linux does not break words at apostrophes when typing. Somebody posted on this ticket that when eSpeak speaks words with apostrophes like dvd's, cd's, things like that that it ignores the final part of the word. But NVDA is the only screen reader that breaks words at apostrophes when using speak typed words. Sorry for this misleading information, Brandon

…

On 8/10/18, Quentin Christensen ***@***.***> wrote: NVDA breaks words at apostrophe's using eSpeak NG, Windows OneCore Voices and SAPI 5. So I think it is likely to be NVDA. It's possible that other implementations (as Brandon indicated it happens on Linux) also used the same logic, that is any non-alphanumeric character breaks a word. The other issues Brian mentioned are separate to this so should be raised in other issues. -- You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #6215 (comment)

-- “Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are.” – J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare

[Adriani90]

cc: @JulienCochuyt

[JulienCochuyt]

IINW, in English the apostrophe can either denote contraction - in which case it is part of the word - but the same character can also be used as quotation mark - in which case it is a word boundary.
In French, it instead denotes elision and as such is a word boundary.
Eg. « l'arbre » originates from « le arbre » ("the tree") but only the former is valid.
Still, there is a single exception I can think of: « aujourd'hui » ("today") which originates from an elision, but is a single word in modern language.
The same argument can question whether a dash is part of a word, a word break or punctuation.

It really depends on the language in use and the context and is closely related to the discrepancies observed in different editors when navigating by word using control+left/right.

IMHO, we should apply the same rule for "speak typed word" as we apply for "review by word" - until we can come up with a language-aware solution.

EDIT: Review by word uses Windows Uniscribe library - unless overridden by the underlying TextInfo.

[Qchristensen]

Perhaps the question should not be "is there a situation in which a single quote or hyphen is used as a word boundary" but rather, given we know in both cases they are used in the middle of words - "Is there ever a situation in which a single quote or hyphen is used as a word boundary WITHOUT another character seen as a word boundary following?" If the answer is no (any time a quote or hyphen ends a word it is followed by a space, full stop, question mark, etc) then we should treat both characters as we do letters. That way, any time they end a word, they will be followed by punctuation or whitespace, and the result for the user will be the same, and any time they are used in the middle of a word, they will be treated as part of the word as they should be.