Pronunciation, phonetic transcription and transliteration

Reading a translation is one thing; saying it is another. Mate helps in three ways.

Hear it

Every translation card has a speaker button. Tap it to hear the translation, or the original text, read by a native-sounding voice. Tap again to stop. In the browser extension, the speaker appears in the popup and in the on-page tooltip; synonyms have their own speaker.

Mate picks the best voice installed on your device for each language, so installing a higher-quality system voice improves Mate too. On iPhone: Settings › Accessibility › Spoken Content › Voices. On Mac: System Settings › Accessibility › Spoken Content › System Voice › Manage Voices. Languages without a device voice are played from Mate's server.

Slow it down

Mac and iPhone have a Speak-out Speed slider in Mate's settings, from SLOW to FAST. Slow is useful when you're trying to copy the pronunciation.

Read it: phonetic transcription

Mate shows the pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet under words and short phrases, for example "thought" → /θɔːt/.

• Mac: Settings › Translation › Pronunciation aids › Show phonetic transcription.
• iPhone and iPad: shown automatically for short texts.
• Browser extension: Settings › Prefs › Show phonetic transcription. This is a Mate Pro feature in the extension.

Read it: transliteration

For languages written in other scripts (Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and more), Mate shows the translation in Latin letters as well, so "спасибо" comes with "spasibo".

• Mac: Settings › Translation › Pronunciation aids › Show transliteration.
• iPhone and iPad: shown automatically.
• Browser extension: part of the phonetic transcription setting.

Noun genders

For German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Mate shows the article with the noun ("die Verjährung", "el puente"), so you learn the gender along with the word. In the extension, turn on Show noun articles in Settings › Prefs (Mate Pro).