When creating your own Alexa skill, there may be times when you would like to change the way Alexa speaks.  Perhaps she isn’t pronouncing a word correctly, maybe her inflections are too serious or you may find the need to include a short audio clip. Speech Synthesis Markup Language, or SSML, is a standardized markup language that provides a way to markup text for changing how speech is synthesized. Numerous SSML tags are currently supported by the Alexa Skills Kit including: speak, p, s, break, say-as, phoneme, w and audio.

This 20-minute video will walk you through adding SSML support to your Alexa skill and shows exactly how to pause Alexa’s speech, change how she pronounces a word and how to create and embed your own audio tags.

For more information about getting started with Alexa and SSML, check out the following:

Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Reference
Alexa Dev Chat Podcast
Intro to Alexa Skills On Demand
Voice Design 101 On Demand
Alexa Skills Kit (ASK)
Alexa Developer Forums

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)