FW: Punctuation pronunciation

[cearbhall o'meadhra]

Hi, NVDA users,

 

I have been trying to change the way NVDA, (latest version) in Windows 11 (latest update), speaks the Exclamation Mark (!) and the apostrophe (').

For the Exclamation Mark, NVDA says "Bang" and for the apostrophe NVDA says "tick". I have change the setting in "Punctuation/symbol pronunciation" under NVDA preferences to speak "Exclamation Mark" and "apostrophe" under each character entry. However, when I press right or left arrow in browse mode to navigate an expression by character, NVDA says "tick" and not "apostrophe". When I use the review cursor and navigate by character using numpad 4 or 6, NVDA always says "Apostrophe".

Why is there this difference?

 

All the best,

 

Cearbhall

 

M: +353 (0) 833323487; E: cearbhall...@blbc.ie

 

From: Jackie McBrearty <teamban...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 5:18 PM
To: 'cearbhall o'meadhra' <cearbhall...@blbc.ie>
Subject: Punctuation pronunciation

 

Hey Cearbhall,

I was wondering if you could ask this in the NVDA group. I'm trying to change the pronunciation of punctuation marks such as the exclamation mark and apostrophe. I go to the correct settings and follow the instructions, but it still doesn't change.

 

Jackie

 

 

 

Yours,

Jackie.

LadyJackie’sLaptop

Sometimes I Sits and Thinks and Other Times I Just Sits

 

 

[Heather]

Hi,
I can't answer your question. But now I'm curious to know if NVDA has its own pronunciation dictionary?
Heather

--
***
Please note: the NVDA project has a Citizen and Contributor Code of Conduct.
NV Access expects that all community members will read and abide by the rules set out in this document while participating in this group.
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
 
You can contact the group owners and moderators via nvda-user...@nvaccess.org.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NVDA Screen Reader Discussion" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to nvda-users+...@nvaccess.org.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/!%26!AAAAAAAAAAAuAAAAAAAAAMZzFYyoko9Pu1KHZMHApGEBAMO2jhD3dRHOtM0AqgC7tuYAAAAAAA4AABAAAACAvMjMp%2BXrRoS%2Bmh85AlAaAQAAAAA%3D%40blbc.ie.

[Quentin Christensen]

Firstly for Cearbhall, NVDA has several records for each symbol:

For ! (exclamation mark / bang), we have the regular one, and where it is sentence ending.  Similarly for ' (apostrophe / tick) we have on its own and "in word".

Change both to the pronunciation you want and it should work.

If you have the "sentence":

I can't!

If you press down arrow to read it, NVDA will read the apostrophe as the "in word" version, and the exclamation mark as the "sentence ending" version.  BUT, as you arrow through the text, it uses the other entry to work out how to pronounce them.

For Heather (and for Cearbhall if needed):  YES!  You can change how NVDA pronounces symbols / punctuation by pressing NVDA+n, then p for preferences, then down arrow to "Punctuation / symbol pronunciation". That opens a dialog where you can browse the list or press shift+tab to the filter field to search for a symbol (either type the current replacement text or the symbol and then tab back to the list to find it now only shows symbols which match what you typed).  For each symbol, you can tab to the "Replacement" field where you can type whatever you'd like NVDA to read when it encounters that symbol (and note, as mentioned earlier, there are multiple entries for some symbols where they may appear in different contexts).  You can set the "Level" - a symbol set to level "some" will be read at symbol level "Some", "most" or "all".  If you set it to "all" it will ONLY be read at level "all", and "Send actual symbol to synthesizer".  That is important for things like commas or sentence ending punctuation as sending it to the synthesizer is what makes the synthesizer pause (if you don't send the exclamation mark then every time you encounter that kind of sentence, NVDA will just keep reading with no pause).

Here's a blog post on symbol level: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-25th-august-2022/#punctuation

Which links to this one on working with the punctuation / symbol pronunciation dialog: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-30th-april-2021/#SymbolPronunciation

Kind regards

Quentin

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/6a751028.f51725f9.3058b3.3d62%40mx.google.com.

--

Quentin Christensen

Training and Support Manager

NV Access

www.nvaccess.org 

Celebrating 20 years of NVDA

Training: https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Certification: https://certification.nvaccess.org/

Blog, releases & news by email: https://nvaccess.org/newsletter

User group: https://nvaccess.org/nvda-users

Mastodon: https://fosstodon.org/@NVAccess

Other socials & community: https://www.nvaccess.org/#socials

[Heather]

Thanks for the fascinating info, Quentin. And also for the helpful links.
Heather

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/CAKsDpFhqBUdUUUHiAYt1%3DOEYEXHnrHs21k1AZQDKkXwXdeYasA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Andrew Downie]

Heather, Quentin covered the pronunciation dictionary.  There is also a separate speech dictionary for when the synthesizer mispronounces words.  See Section 12.2.1 of the User Guide.

Andrew

On Fri, Aug 7, 2026 at 8:52 AM Heather <hsbook...@gmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/6a751028.f51725f9.3058b3.3d62%40mx.google.com.

[Heather]

Thanks for that info, Andrewdd I'll keep that in mind if I ever run into that issue. And when haven't we run into mispronounced words with our scheen readers, lol.
Though to be honest, I find some mispronunciations funny. Those are an unintentionally hilarious way to keep dry documents interesting.
Heather

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/CALBhsT6MKKvYi%3DRSB5G%2Bi7hGyY9r9u_Ez3AYx-3D2GtFF7fGVQ%40mail.gmail.com.