Listening to your Readings

I get through pages and pages of reading material each week by listening to them. I use the Read Out Loud function of Adobe Reader on my PC and the Text-to-Speech option on my Kindle. (I'll give some technical details below.)



It might take some adjustment listening to an automated voice, but you get used to it. The automated readers don't know how to handle Tibetan words and words written with diacritical marks, so you just have to shrug that off. But otherwise I have been very happy with the natural-sounding cadence of the electronic voice on my devices. My Kindle does slightly better than my PC.

There seem to be some programs aimed at the visually impaired which allow the user to teach the computer new vocabulary or to correct its pronunciation, but I haven't invested in any of those programs.

Students of the Discovering Buddhism courses might like to use the text-to-speech option in order to get through the assigned readings. Part of the reading assignments are being made available to students in the form of a PDF, readable by Adobe Reader. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, the other main reading, is available as an e-book, for use on devices such as Kindle.

There are also years' of transcripts and articles available online through sites such as www.lamayeshe.com and www.berzinarchives.com. You can save these as PDF's (look for the button or link on the page where you have the article open).

I also have 35 to 50 pages of material to get through each week from the online FPMT Master's Program. After a while, my eyes are scanning across the pages but I'm not absorbing anything. So here's how I do it.

(Your settings are going to vary according to what kind of system you have, but I will explain how I listen to articles and books.)

At home, I play files from my computer using Adobe Reader's Read Out Loud function, which can be found under the View menu.

Then I have to go back to the same View, Read Out Loud option and activate. If you write down the shortcuts keys, you won't have to go to the menu.

You can adjust the pitch and speed of the voice through your computer's voice or text-to-speech settings. That's something outside of Adobe Reader.

In the car--4 to 6 hours a week--I plug my Kindle into the car stereo and play files from there. You can also use this method at the gym or on a walk if you have a big pocket or a pouch to put your Kindle in. 

If it's a book that's text-to-speech enabled, like Liberation is, you just turn on the speech by pressing the Aa button and then selecting like this: 

You can control the pitch and speed, to a certain extent, by pressing the Aa button again after text-to-speech has been activated. (Do this before you start driving.)

The important thing for me is that I can email my own documents to my Kindle, through the special @kindle.com email address that Amazon assigned me (and that they will be happy to assign to you).

Your file can be in any number of file types. If you just drag the files over manually, they won't be converted into Kindle format. In Kindle format, it becomes re-sizable, searchable, and text-to-speech-able. Sometimes you might want a PDF on there just as it is, so that you don't lose the formatting. But let's say you have a PDF that you want to listen to on your Kindle. Here are the instructions, straight from the Amazon Kindle website:

Option to Convert PDF Files to Kindle Format

If you prefer to have your personal PDF documents converted to the Kindle format so you can take advantage of Kindle functionality such as variable font size, annotation, Text-to-Speech, etc., type "Convert" in the subject of the e-mail when you submit your personal document to your @kindle.com address.

Are you on a Mac? Or using a different kind of e-book reader? Let us know how it works on your device.

Happy listening.