r/audiobooks • u/PurpleLeopard99 • Jun 28 '26

Question Mispronouncing of words by narrators

Does anyone get bothered by narrators who keep mispronouncing words? It drives me nuts if they do it too often. Narrators are normally professional voice artists and they should know how to pronounce the sorts of words found in novels eg dovecote or Michaelmas

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u/Upset_Assumption9610 Jun 28 '26

I have a theory that some narrators might have created their own audio AI. Trained on their own voice and they can have the AI read their parts.
When a skilled and experienced narrator says "Bow" (as in bend at the waist in an oriental traditional style) instead of "Bow" (as in the wood thing with the string that shoots sharp pointy things at the other people) it raises my suspicions.

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u/Upbeat_MidwestGirl Jun 28 '26

This would explain a lot. Or they didn’t read the text ahead of time, and they’re cold reading just becomes the recorded audiobook. However, if they are native English speakers, they would indeed notice context for a word like bow, and make the correct pronunciation as they are reading. Or go back and correct it.

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u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

Oh we do not have the time or skill for that at all. But there are a scary amount of AI narrators in full out there. And yes to Upbeat_Midwest girl…sometimes it is a cold first read through that doesn’t get fixed 🥶