Need a quick MP3 file of a certain saying to goof on a co-worker? Whatever your needs, Google Translate can be used as an impromptu text-to-speech converter, providing a handy MP3 file of your chosen words.
It's not an official offering, but when Google Translate wants to provide you the spoken version of your translation, as it has done since last month's upgrades, it calls up a URL—translate.google.com/translate_tts—with something like q=Lifehacker+is+occasionally+more+goofy+than+productive appended at the end. Anyone can enter that URL on their own and attach their own search string. As an example, click on the link below to hear the text-to-speech work (or be prompted to download an MP3, depending on your browser setup):
http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?…
The service is, unfortunately, limited to 100 characters, and is English only at this point, and may or may not disappear if it sees heavy use/abuse. For the time being, enjoy Google Translate's help in telling your coworkers just how you feel in robo-speak, or narrating your slideshows, or crafting a killer computer-sung track.
Google's Text-to-Speech Converter Service [Google Blogoscoped]