I am looking for software that will synthesis Italian speech from text files in Italian. I am hoping to use this software to learn Italian, so proper pronunciation and a realistic voice is key. When I learned Morse code years ago, it was with a program that allowed the user to vary the speed of individual letters and the space between letters independently. This allowed one to learn the letters sent quickly but the pauses sent slowly, instead of coupling the sending speed and pause length together. The best way to learn is to listen to slowly sent letters with a very long pause, increasing the speed of the letters to the desired rate over time, but keeping a long pause. When one got to the desired letter speed one aspired to, one increased one’s speed in receiving by shortening the pauses between letters. This worked very well, and as a result I am looking for a speech synthesis program that allows one to vary the speed of the speech and the size of the pause between words independently. Do speech synthesis programs allow this, and if so, which one is good?