Enable this Alexa Skill to hear the Boston Accent
In a previous post, a technical introduction on what it takes to teach your Amazon Echo to speak with a Boston Accent was provided.
Today, we are greatly simplifying this idea.
Introducing Boston Says
“Boston Says” — a free Alexa skill to give your Amazon Echo a Boston accent.
To add this free skill to your Alexa device:
- From a Web Browser: click here and select Enable Skill
- From the Alexa Mobile App: click here and select Enable Skill
Usage Instructions
Start by saying “Alexa, ask Boston Says to repeat…” followed by a word or phrase.
Here are some sample phrases to get you going:
“Park the car on Harvard Yard”
“Did you know that Marcus Smart plays for the Celtics”
“Make a U turn when going to Medford”
“Unfortunately, the car with the bumper sticker has its blinkers on”
“Love your future”
Next Steps
Enable the skill and test out your own words and phrases. Please feel free to respond to this post or @Ivan Campos with any questions, feedback, or comments.
Behind the Scenes
To achieve this functionality, the following was used to program the Alexa Skill:
- Invocation Name: Boston Says
- Intent: repeat {AMAZON.SearchQuery}
- AMAZON.SearchQuery (Alexa Skill Kit slot type) — this allows you to capture the word or phrase uttered by the user
- SSML — this is the language used to translate what Alexa hears into audio output with a Boston accent
- AWS Lambda — free for your first 1 Million requests, Lambda functions take the user’s word or phrase and returns the translated SSML
If you’re interested in reading previous posts around Alexa, the Boston Accent, and voice UIs, please check out the following…
