Microsoft’s Edge browser’s Read Aloud function for Japanese is particularly impressive. It sounds a lot clearer than Windows’ built in TTS voices for Japanese (which are not bad, but they sound like an AM radio).
If you’re up to intermediate/advanced level and are trying to read a lot of Japanese content online, using the Read Aloud together with your Japanese dictionary extension of choice (I like 10ten), it’s quite a killer combination!
My reading is already pretty fast, given I know Mandarin so Kanji is not a big problem, but I often don’t know how the kanji is pronounced, and that’s where the Read Aloud function comes in really handy. And it’s also cool to let it read in the background so that you can listen to websites as well.
I know Chrome has similar functionality via 3rd party extensions, but Edge’s version is probably using their Azure-based TTS functionality on the cloud, so it’s seamless. You can also pause and resume the reading, especially when you want to look up words and stuff.
Just thought I’d mention this interesting resource so that you can try it for yourself and see if it helps in your learning workflow/immersion.
Ed