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Cloud Speech API: 3 Ways

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Cloud Speech API 3 Ways: Challenge Lab

Lab 45 minutes universal_currency_alt 1 Credit show_chart Introductory
info This lab may incorporate AI tools to support your learning.
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ARC132

Overview

In a challenge lab you’re given a scenario and a set of tasks. Instead of following step-by-step instructions, you will use the skills learned from the labs in the course to figure out how to complete the tasks on your own! An automated scoring system (shown on this page) will provide feedback on whether you have completed your tasks correctly.

When you take a challenge lab, you will not be taught new Google Cloud concepts. You are expected to extend your learned skills, like changing default values and reading and researching error messages to fix your own mistakes.

To score 100% you must successfully complete all tasks within the time period!

Setup and requirements

Before you click the Start Lab button

Read these instructions. Labs are timed and you cannot pause them. The timer, which starts when you click Start Lab, shows how long Google Cloud resources are made available to you.

This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.

To complete this lab, you need:

  • Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended).
Note: Use an Incognito (recommended) or private browser window to run this lab. This prevents conflicts between your personal account and the student account, which may cause extra charges incurred to your personal account.
  • Time to complete the lab—remember, once you start, you cannot pause a lab.
Note: Use only the student account for this lab. If you use a different Google Cloud account, you may incur charges to that account.

Challenge scenario

You are starting your career as a junior cloud architect. In this role, you have been assigned to work on a team project that requires you to use the Cloud Speech API services in Google Cloud.

You are expected to have the skills and knowledge to complete the tasks that follow.

Your challenge

For this challenge, you are required to transcribe speech to text in different languages using the Cloud Speech API.

You need to:

  • Create synthetic speech from text using the Text-to-Speech API.
  • Create an API key.
  • Perform speech to text transcription with the Cloud Speech API.
  • Translate text with the Cloud Translation API.
  • Detect a language with the Cloud Translation API.

For this challenge lab, a virtual machine (VM) instance named has been configured for you to complete tasks 2 through 5.

Each task is described in detail below, good luck!

Task 1. Create an API key

  1. For this task, you need to create an API key to use in this and other tasks when sending a request to the Speech-to-Text API.
  1. Save the API key to use in other tasks.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Create an API key

Task 2. Create synthetic speech from text using the Text-to-Speech API

  1. For this task, connect to the VM instance provisioned for you via SSH.

  2. Activate the virtual environment using the source venv/bin/activate command.

  3. Using a text editor (such as nano or vim), create a file named synthesize-text.json and paste the following into the file:

{ 'input':{ 'text':'Cloud Text-to-Speech API allows developers to include natural-sounding, synthetic human speech as playable audio in their applications. The Text-to-Speech API converts text or Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) input into audio data like MP3 or LINEAR16 (the encoding used in WAV files).' }, 'voice':{ 'languageCode':'en-gb', 'name':'en-GB-Standard-A', 'ssmlGender':'FEMALE' }, 'audioConfig':{ 'audioEncoding':'MP3' } }
  1. Call the Text-to-Speech API to synthesize the text of the synthesize-text.json file, and store the result in a file named .

  2. Using a text editor (such as nano or vim), create a file named tts_decode.py and paste the following code into that file:

import argparse from base64 import decodebytes import json """ Usage: python tts_decode.py --input "{{{project_0.startup_script.synthesize_response | Filled in at lab start}}}" \ --output "synthesize-text-audio.mp3" """ def decode_tts_output(input_file, output_file): """ Decode output from Cloud Text-to-Speech. input_file: the response from Cloud Text-to-Speech output_file: the name of the audio file to create """ with open(input_file) as input: response = json.load(input) audio_data = response['audioContent'] with open(output_file, "wb") as new_file: new_file.write(decodebytes(audio_data.encode('utf-8'))) if __name__ == '__main__': parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( description="Decode output from Cloud Text-to-Speech", formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter) parser.add_argument('--input', help='The response from the Text-to-Speech API.', required=True) parser.add_argument('--output', help='The name of the audio file to create', required=True) args = parser.parse_args() decode_tts_output(args.input, args.output)
  1. Now, to create an audio file using the response you received from the Text-to-Speech API, run the following command from Cloud Shell:
python tts_decode.py --input "synthesize-text.txt" --output "synthesize-text-audio.mp3"

This creates a new MP3 file named synthesize-text-audio.mp3.

  1. Finally, download the audio file via the DOWNLOAD FILE option of the VM instance's SSH session in order to listen to it.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Create synthetic speech from text using the Text-to-Speech API

Task 3. Perform speech to text transcription with the Cloud Speech API

Note: This lab uses a pre-recorded file that's available on Cloud Storage: gs://cloud-samples-data/speech/corbeau_renard.flac. You can listen to this file.
  1. For this task, connect to the VM instance provisioned for you via SSH.

  2. Using a text editor (such as nano or vim), create a file named as your API request to transcribe the audio file available at the gs://cloud-samples-data/speech/corbeau_renard.flac location to French.

  3. Call and store the result in a file named .

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Create the API request for transcription in French language

Task 4. Translate text with the Cloud Translation API

  1. For this task, connect to the VM instance provisioned for you via SSH.

  2. Translate the sentence to the English language by calling the Cloud Translation API and store the result in the file.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Translate text with the Cloud Translation API

Task 5. Detect a language with the Cloud Translation API

  1. For this task, connect to the VM instance provisioned for you via SSH.

  2. Detect the language of the sentence by calling the Cloud Translation API and store the result in the file.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Detect a language with the Cloud Translation API

Congratulations!

You have successfully created synthetic speech from text using the Text-to-Speech API, transcribed speech to text using the Cloud Speech API, as well as translated text and detected a language with the Cloud Translation API.

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Manual Last Updated November 30, 2023

Lab Last Tested December 04, 2023

Copyright 2025 Google LLC. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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