SpeechSynthesisUtterance: start event

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since September 2018.

The start event of the Web Speech API SpeechSynthesisUtterance object is fired when the utterance has begun to be spoken.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js
addEventListener("start", (event) => { })

onstart = (event) => { }

Event type

A SpeechSynthesisEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event SpeechSynthesisEvent

Examples

You can use the start event in an addEventListener method:

js
utterThis.addEventListener("start", (event) => {
  console.log(`We have started uttering this speech: ${event.utterance.text}`);
});

Or use the onstart event handler property:

js
utterThis.onstart = (event) => {
  console.log(`We have started uttering this speech: ${event.utterance.text}`);
};

Specifications

Specification
Web Speech API
# eventdef-speechsynthesisutterance-start
Web Speech API
# dom-speechsynthesisutterance-onstart

Browser compatibility

See also