Are there any simple ways to get natural sounding text-to-speech on Linux?

[kalpana]

I'm a releative newbie to Linux and Ubuntu with a visual impairment who really wants to make a full break from Windows, but can't because the text-to-speech options are just so awful.

Over the years I've grown used to using a number of voices on Windows (from AT& T, ScanSoft, Microsoft and others) at speeds that most people find indecipherable, but I just can't find any native Linux ones that come anywhere close to them.

Searching this site and others shows either quite old instructions for the ghastly espeak voices - or the slightly better Festival ones - or relatively complicated options of setting up WINE options.

Setting these up on Windows was a doddle - can anyone point me to any help that might make it so on Linux?

FYI - I don't need a full screen-reader, just the ability to select text and have it read back to me with a short-cut key.

Any advice gratefully received.