RobertasTa/android-lt

Android LT: a Lithuanian voice and ears for Android phones

Ingutė, a Lithuanian synthetic voice, on your Android phone, offline. The phone uses it wherever it can read aloud: the text-to-speech settings, the screen reader, book and article readers.

There are ears too: speak Lithuanian to the phone and the text appears in any text field: SMS, notes, the ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini app. Also offline (see Ears).

Since 1.2.0 there are two ready-made apps: download, install, done. No F-Droid, no cable, no computer → Installing

Installed it but not sure what next? → Everyday use

Page: https://robertasta.github.io/android-lt/en/ · Lietuviškai ir kodas: github.com/RobertasTa/android-lt

What is here

• Ingute-1.0.apk (151 MB): the app "Ingutė", a Lithuanian voice for the phone. The voice, the "s" fix and the stress dictionary are already inside; once installed it becomes the phone's voice by itself. It is SherpaTTS 3.4 (woheller69) with our Lithuanian additions (source).
• Parakeetype-LT-0.5.0-lt2.apk (59 MB): the voice keyboard "Parakeetype LT" for Lithuanian dictation. It is Parakeetype (theScrabi) with the Lithuanian model first and as the default (source). It has no internet permission.
• Ears (parakeet-lt-kmynas-int8.zip, 955 MB): the Lithuanian speech recognition model for that keyboard; the app shows where to download it.
• For advanced users, separately: Ingutė in sherpa-onnx format (lt_LT-ingute-medium.onnx, 63 MB), a tokens.txt with an "s" fix (eSpeak NG writes Lithuanian /s/ as ʂ in many positions, a symbol the voice hardly learned, so "pasiimk skėtį" comes out as "paimk kėtį"), and lt_dict, the eSpeak NG dictionary with the stressed syllable for 189,000 word forms (without it the stress is wrong in about half of the multi-syllable words).

Both apps are signed with our key, certificate SHA-256 8679aa5fbfd9f9f96d53ba761e72c9b0f7a361ffdc8493e33bb905e077afaf7f; file hashes are in SHA256SUMS.txt in the release.

Installing (about 5 minutes)

Android 10 or newer (Android 12 for the ears). Both files are in the release.

Voice: "Ingutė"

1. Download Ingute-1.0.apk to the phone and tap it (in the browser or a file manager, in the Download folder). The phone asks whether to allow installing apps from this source: allow it.
2. Install. No need to open the app: Ingutė installs herself.
3. Phone settings → "Text-to-speech output" → engine Ingutė, language Lithuanian → "Listen to an example". Ingutė speaks, with the stress already right.

Ears: "Parakeetype LT"

1. Download and install Parakeetype-LT-0.5.0-lt2.apk. If Google Play Protect offers to scan the app, tap Scan, then Install (for us it answered that the app looks safe).
2. Open it, allow the microphone, and next to "Model not installed" tap Install.
3. On the "Parakeet Lithuanian (Default)" card: Download in browser (955 MB, Wi-Fi is better). When it has downloaded: Import model file → parakeet-lt-kmynas-int8.zip. A minute later the card says Active model; you can delete the archive.
4. On the start screen, next to "Keyboard not enabled" → Open settings → turn Parakeetype on. Android warns that the keyboard "may collect everything you type": it says this for every keyboard, and this one has no internet permission, so the text never leaves the phone → OK.
5. Dictate: in any text field long-press 🌐 in Gboard → Parakeetype Voice Input, hold the big microphone button and speak.

The app screenshots are in Lithuanian, the system dialogs in Russian (the phone's language).

Advanced: the voice through SherpaTTS from F-Droid (without our app, about 10 minutes)

1. Install SherpaTTS from F-Droid. It is not on Google Play; searching there shows other, ad-supported apps. File: https://f-droid.org/repo/org.woheller69.ttsengine_34.apk (version 3.4, 91 MB). The right app is called SherpaTTS, package org.woheller69.ttsengine, no ads.
2. Download to the phone from the release: lt_LT-ingute-medium.onnx and tokens.txt.
3. SherpaTTS → "INSTALL PIPER MODEL FROM SD": language code lit, name Ingute, model lt_LT-ingute-medium.onnx, tokens tokens.txt → OK.
4. Phone settings → "Text-to-speech output" → engine SherpaTTS, language Lithuanian → "Listen to an example".

Ingutė speaks now. Stress is still placed by eSpeak NG; step 5 fixes that.

5. Stress (needs a computer)

Recent Android versions (tested on 15) do not let file managers write into another app's folder, so lt_dict goes in through adb from a computer (Google platform-tools).

1. On the phone: Settings → About phone → tap the build number 7 times (developer mode; the phone asks for its unlock code) → in developer options turn on USB debugging → connect the cable and allow it on the phone.
2. On the computer, in the folder with the downloaded lt_dict:

adb shell md5sum /sdcard/Android/data/org.woheller69.ttsengine/files/espeak-ng-data/lt_dict

It must print 5426503daf0a29836d0f168d38b38581 (the dictionary of SherpaTTS 3.4). If it is different, stop: your SherpaTTS version differs and this lt_dict was built for 3.4.

adb shell cp /sdcard/Android/data/org.woheller69.ttsengine/files/espeak-ng-data/lt_dict /sdcard/Android/data/org.woheller69.ttsengine/files/espeak-ng-data/lt_dict_orig
adb push lt_dict /sdcard/Android/data/org.woheller69.ttsengine/files/espeak-ng-data/lt_dict
adb shell am force-stop org.woheller69.ttsengine

Open SherpaTTS and listen to "Dabar labai gera diena, nes Lietuvos rinktinė laimėjo." You can switch USB debugging off afterwards. To undo, rename lt_dict_orig back to lt_dict. Reinstalling SherpaTTS or clearing its data undoes step 5.

Measurements

A Lithuanian speech recognition model listened to 12 everyday sentences (no numbers):

	word errors
Ingutė in SherpaTTS, no fixes	7.7 %
+ "s" fix (tokens.txt)	4.4 %
+ stress (lt_dict)	1.1 %

Stressed syllable compared with the stress dictionary on LIEPA texts (19,943 multi-syllable words): eSpeak NG alone 53.4 %, with this dictionary 99.3 %. Tested on a Xiaomi 12T Pro, Android 15, SherpaTTS 3.4.

Limits

• Numbers and abbreviations are read by eSpeak NG itself ("15:25 val." may sound odd).
• Only the stressed syllable is set, not the Lithuanian pitch accent.
• About 9 % of words are not in the dictionary; eSpeak NG guesses those.
• lt_dict was built for SherpaTTS 3.4 (sherpa-onnx 1.13); check the md5 first on other versions.
• It is a synthetic voice: natural, but not a person.

Ears: Lithuanian dictation (Parakeetype)

Parakeetype is an open-source voice keyboard for Android (F-Droid). It recognises speech on the phone and never goes online. Its default model hears Lithuanian poorly; parakeet-lt-kmynas-int8.zip gives it Lithuanian ears.

word error rate	FLEURS (986 utterances)	short commands (127)
Parakeetype's default model (Parakeet Ultra)	27.1 %	80.4 %
with these ears	10.6 %	17.0 %

Measured on a PC with a script that follows Parakeetype's recognition path exactly; tested live on Robertas's phone (Xiaomi 12T Pro, Android 15).

Installing: see "Ears: Parakeetype LT" above, our ready-made app. Once Parakeetype's author merges our proposal theScrabi/Parakeetype#1, the F-Droid Parakeetype will offer the Lithuanian model too.

Build it yourself

You need a computer with Java 17 or newer and the Android SDK: Android Studio or Google's command-line tools (android sdk install "platforms;android-37.0" "build-tools;37.0.0"). The first build downloads about 1 GB.

git clone -b lt-build https://github.com/RobertasTa/Parakeetype.git
cd Parakeetype
./gradlew assembleDebug

On Windows: gradlew assembleDebug. Point to the Android SDK with sdk.dir=... in local.properties or the ANDROID_HOME variable. Copy the resulting app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk to the phone's Download folder and tap it in a file manager (Xiaomi phones refuse adb install without a Mi account). If you already have "Parakeetype LT" from our release, uninstall it first: apps signed with different keys cannot update each other. The voice app's source is branch ingute; it builds the same way.

Limits of the ears

• Lithuanian only. For other languages pick the default model (one model is active at a time).
• About 910 MB on the phone; Parakeetype needs Android 12 or newer.
• On short commands it gets roughly one word in six wrong.

Everyday use

Installing does not yet make the phone speak or listen. Here is what to set up once and how to use it afterwards. Menu names differ a little between phones, so the easiest way to find them is the search box in the phone's settings. The screenshots are from a Xiaomi phone set to Russian.

Make the phone read with Ingutė's voice

1. Make Ingutė the phone's voice (once)

Search the settings for "text-to-speech".

• Preferred engine → Ingutė (or SherpaTTS if you took the advanced route). Android warns that the engine "may collect text"; it shows this for every voice that is not Google's. Ingutė processes the text on the phone → OK.
• Language → Lithuanian. If it stays at "system language" on a phone that is not in Lithuanian, the buttons are grey and nothing speaks.
• Play (listen to an example): Ingutė should speak. The speed slider is right there.

2. Have any text on the screen read aloud: SMS, email, articles (once)

Search the settings for "Select to Speak". It is a Google feature present on most phones with Google Play.

• Turn the switch on. Android asks for permission to see the screen; without it the feature could not read the text → Allow.
• A small blue button appears at the edge of the screen. If you are asked how to set it up, leave it as it is and tap OK.

Every day: open the text → tap the blue button → tap a paragraph and Ingutė reads it (or ▶ to read the whole screen, ■ to stop). You can drag the button elsewhere if it is in the way.

Make the phone type what you say (ears)

Once Parakeetype with the Lithuanian model is installed (see "Ears" above):

1. Open the place where you type: SMS, notes, search.
2. Switch the keyboard to Parakeetype. In Gboard, long-press the 🌐 globe → "Parakeetype Voice Input". On other keyboards look for a small keyboard icon at the bottom of the screen.
3. Hold the big microphone button and speak. When you let go, the text appears; the app adds full stops, commas and capital letters itself.
4. Back to your usual keyboard: the small keyboard icon on the right, above the Enter key.

Stuck? Just ask

Lost, or the phone shows something different from this page? Open any AI chat (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) and paste:

Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RobertasTa/android-lt/main/AI_CONSULTANT_BRIEF.md and help me with Android LT.

Then say what does not work and attach a screenshot. That AI knows all these steps and the usual mistakes, and it will answer in your language.

Licences

The header above names the voice licence; the apps are GPL-3.0 and the ears archive is CC BY 4.0 (below).

• Apps: GPL-3.0, like their originals. "Ingutė" is SherpaTTS (woheller69) with our changes (source); "Parakeetype LT" is Parakeetype (theScrabi) with our changes (source). The voice and dictionary inside "Ingutė" are under the licences below.
• Voice (lt_LT-ingute-medium.onnx, tokens.txt): NewGenLTU Open RAIL-D 1.0. Free of charge, commercial use is not prohibited, use restrictions apply; when passing it on, include LICENSE-VOICE and state the origin. Ingutė was grown from the Reginutė model with the authors' own Python tools.
• lt_dict and its sources (espeak-ng-lt/): GPL-3.0 (eSpeak NG data). The stress positions come from two CC BY 4.0 works; see THIRD_PARTY.md.
• Ears (parakeet-lt-kmynas-int8.zip): CC BY 4.0. NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3, fine-tuned for Lithuanian by Kristijonas Jakubsonas ("kmynas v4", LIEPA-3). Our changes are listed in the archive's NOTICE.txt. The Silero VAD inside the archive is MIT. Parakeetype is a separate app (GPL-3.0).
• Texts in this repository: GPL-3.0 (LICENSE).

Thanks

SherpaTTS (woheller69), sherpa-onnx (k2-fsa), eSpeak NG, Piper and Michael Hansen; the creators of the LIEPA corpus (Vilnius University) and Arūnas Smaliukas for g2p-lt-lexicon; Parakeetype (theScrabi), Kristijonas Jakubsonas for the Lithuanian Parakeet ("kmynas") and NVIDIA for Parakeet.

Stuck?

Paste into any AI chat: Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RobertasTa/android-lt/main/AI_CONSULTANT_BRIEF.md and help me with Android LT. Questions and feedback: Issues.

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Made with AI: Claude (Anthropic) prepared and measured the package together with Robertas; tested on Robertas's phone; the banner was made with AI. Our other gifts: Skaityklė (text to MP3), Diktuoklė (voice dictation), all of them.