Swap with your son so you have your old beloved Hal back, sounds like the simple solution,

The reason that all place names aren't pronounced correctly is because "people" aren't reviewing and speaking all the names. It's computers that are "reading" and voice synthesizers that are "speaking."

No speakers, just computer voices. Take your old machine back.

Jane

Someon had to program the computer to interpret a glotal stop rather then a true "T" sound! Why wouldn't the designers of the Nuvi give users a choice of both male and female voices? The first thing my 40 year old son did to my old Nuvi was switch from the male to a female voice. I really did enjoy listening to Hal--he always sounded sarcastic as he announced, "Recalculating" after I chose to ignore him. I do have a valid reason for preferring the lower voice because of my high frequency hearing loss.

Mudlady-
The problem is that the computer can't -- at least yet -- correctly figure out all the phonetic variations in place names. Many place names are difficult for humans to pronounce correctly unless they know what the local usage is. Where I live, many of the place names derive from Native American names, and we don't even always agree with one another on how they should be said. No amount of programming can produce 100% correct pronunciation at this point...but it will get better.

Where I live there is a big street called Manchaca. It is pronounced Man-Shack. My GPS lady in my phone pronounced it Mine-Ca-Ca. I liked to go that way just to hear her.

I speak of her in the past tense because, alas, she died. Now I have to use the way of the Ancients - maps. :)

On my older phone I could hear a sigh and eye-rolling in that "Recalculating".

So maybe I'll get a Garmin. Or a new phone.

I agree with kudzu's comment. In Susan's example, that's a widely practiced mispronunciation and not a phonetic variation, There are scores of Spanish-source place names in the Southwest. There's no uncertainty or disagreement about what the correct pronunciation should be, it's just that anglicized versions took hold in many cases and the "correct" pronounciations were thrown out the window.

There are zillions of examples of anglicized mispronunciations all over the US. Place names of Spanish origin are easily misprounouced, as is true with so many others that come from French (Boise, Detroit, Des Moines, Pierre).

GPS device audio just approximates using simplified phonetics. Agreed upon localizations won't ever command a second of programming time.

Gee, If I didn't know Tucson so well, I'd get a gps just to hear the mispronuncaitions it would come up with for our streets. I drove professionally here for 12 years, so it would just be for laughs.

I have that exact model, mine says 2555 LMT but I think it's the same. I got it last summer to replace my basic one because I had to drive my son from NY to Maryland alone and needed something to find gas stations and restaurants and stuff plus it was going to cost more than the device was worth to pay for the map updates.

My friend got the similar model that lets you talk to it but I don't like it as the screen is smaller and I had a small screen so felt the bigger screen was more important to me compared to being able to talk to it and tell it where to go.

I love this model but quit using it 4 months ago only because hubby bought me a new car for our anniversary and it came with built in navigation and that has a wonderful female voice that is so realistic and I love it.

I think you can still get hal from garmin online if I remember right. If you haven't done so register the new one at mygarmin.com and make sure your garmin express on the computer is update so you are good to go for your map updates. You get like 3 a year I think it is for lifetime.

I am doing updates on mine now since we keep it in the van because that does not have built in navigation but when done I will play and see if you can get hal. I know I downloaded some different voices to mine and I have bert and ernie starring at me for road trips on mine.

On my old garmin my husband could not stand recalculating when ever he made a wrong turn and this garmin doesn't say a word so he liked it better for that.

You can also use this new one to play audio books if you didn't know that and sometimes I use it for photo slide shows.

My only complaint is why can't they give you a standard mini USB plug like most electronics these days? I have to make sure I don't misplace it as I only have one but I have many of the standard mini usb plugs. Mary

Ok my bad I guess and you cant get hal. You might like this voice and it's a free one, can play a sample. There are a host of other sites away from garmin to get voices too. You can also get some free dashboards on the garmin site, that is where I got bert and ernie. Mary

Here is a link that might be useful: Garmin voice