Text-to-Speech (TTS) is technology that converts text data into human speech. It is widely used as the foundation for screen readers, voice assistants (Siri, Alexa), and navigation systems.

TTS processing involves three stages: text analysis (morphological analysis, pronunciation estimation), prosody generation (accent, intonation), and speech synthesis. Recent deep learning-based synthesis techniques produce remarkably natural speech. Speech synthesis technology books explain the underlying mechanisms.

Web browsers provide TTS functionality through the Web Speech API's SpeechSynthesis interface. For Japanese TTS, disambiguating kanji readings (homographs) remains a challenge.

From a character count perspective, text length and reading time are proportional. In Japanese, approximately 300-400 characters per minute is the standard reading speed. Voice interface design books provide additional insights.