diff --git a/packages/text-to-speech/package.json b/packages/text-to-speech/package.json
index 2c4e8591b..6c40d7faf 100644
--- a/packages/text-to-speech/package.json
+++ b/packages/text-to-speech/package.json
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
     "jsonwebtoken": "^8.5.1",
     "linkedom": "^0.14.12",
     "microsoft-cognitiveservices-speech-sdk": "^1.22.0",
-    "natural": "^5.2.3",
+    "natural": "^6.2.0",
     "redis": "^4.3.1",
     "underscore": "^1.13.4"
   }
diff --git a/packages/text-to-speech/src/htmlToSsml.ts b/packages/text-to-speech/src/htmlToSsml.ts
index e6c1207d6..41e780011 100644
--- a/packages/text-to-speech/src/htmlToSsml.ts
+++ b/packages/text-to-speech/src/htmlToSsml.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
-import { parseHTML } from 'linkedom'
-import { SentenceTokenizer, WordPunctTokenizer } from 'natural'
 import { htmlToText } from 'html-to-text'
+import { parseHTML } from 'linkedom'
+import {
+  SentenceTokenizer,
+  SentenceTokenizerNew,
+  WordPunctTokenizer,
+} from 'natural'
 
 // this code needs to be kept in sync with the
 // frontend code in: useReadingProgressAnchor
@@ -262,14 +266,14 @@ export const stripEmojis = (text: string): string => {
 }
 
 const textToUtterances = ({
-  tokenizer,
+  wordTokenizer,
   idx,
   textItems,
   wordOffset,
   voice,
   isHtml = true,
 }: {
-  tokenizer: WordPunctTokenizer
+  wordTokenizer: WordPunctTokenizer
   idx: string
   textItems: string[]
   wordOffset: number
@@ -284,7 +288,7 @@ const textToUtterances = ({
         idx,
         text,
         wordOffset,
-        wordCount: tokenizer.tokenize(text).length,
+        wordCount: wordTokenizer.tokenize(text).length,
         voice,
       },
     ]
@@ -303,10 +307,18 @@ const textToUtterances = ({
     text = parseHTML(text).document.documentElement.textContent ?? text
     console.info('Converted HTML to text:', text)
   }
-
   const MAX_CHARS = 256
-  const sentenceTokenizer = new SentenceTokenizer()
-  const sentences = sentenceTokenizer.tokenize(text)
+  let sentences: string[] = []
+  try {
+    // use new sentence tokenizer
+    const sentenceTokenizer = new SentenceTokenizerNew()
+    sentences = sentenceTokenizer.tokenize(text)
+  } catch (err) {
+    console.debug('Unable to tokenize sentences, text:', text, ', error:', err)
+    // fallback to old sentence tokenizer
+    const sentenceTokenizer = new SentenceTokenizer()
+    sentences = sentenceTokenizer.tokenize(text)
+  }
   let currentText = ''
   // split text to max 256 chars per utterance and
   // use nlp lib to detect sentences and
@@ -319,7 +331,7 @@ const textToUtterances = ({
     const nextText = currentText + sentence
     if (nextText.length > MAX_CHARS) {
       if (currentText.length > 0) {
-        const wordCount = tokenizer.tokenize(currentText).length
+        const wordCount = wordTokenizer.tokenize(currentText).length
         utterances.push({
           idx,
           text: currentText,
@@ -330,7 +342,7 @@ const textToUtterances = ({
         wordOffset += wordCount
         currentText = sentence
       } else {
-        const wordCount = tokenizer.tokenize(sentence).length
+        const wordCount = wordTokenizer.tokenize(sentence).length
         utterances.push({
           idx,
           text: sentence,
@@ -348,7 +360,7 @@ const textToUtterances = ({
         idx,
         text: currentText,
         wordOffset,
-        wordCount: tokenizer.tokenize(currentText).length,
+        wordCount: wordTokenizer.tokenize(currentText).length,
         voice,
       })
     }
@@ -386,13 +398,13 @@ export const htmlToSpeechFile = (htmlInput: HtmlInput): SpeechFile => {
     }
   }
 
-  const tokenizer = new WordPunctTokenizer()
+  const wordTokenizer = new WordPunctTokenizer()
   const utterances: Utterance[] = []
   let wordOffset = 0
   if (title) {
     // first utterances is the title
     const titleUtterance = textToUtterances({
-      tokenizer,
+      wordTokenizer,
       idx: '',
       textItems: [stripEmojis(title)], // title could have emoji
       wordOffset,
@@ -413,7 +425,7 @@ export const htmlToSpeechFile = (htmlInput: HtmlInput): SpeechFile => {
       const idx = i.toString()
       i = emitElement(textItems, node, true)
       const newUtterances = textToUtterances({
-        tokenizer,
+        wordTokenizer,
         idx,
         textItems,
         wordOffset,
diff --git a/packages/text-to-speech/test/htmlToSsml.test.ts b/packages/text-to-speech/test/htmlToSsml.test.ts
index a2673f465..61f1da66d 100644
--- a/packages/text-to-speech/test/htmlToSsml.test.ts
+++ b/packages/text-to-speech/test/htmlToSsml.test.ts
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
-import 'mocha'
 import { expect } from 'chai'
+import * as fs from 'fs'
+import 'mocha'
+import path from 'path'
 import {
   htmlToSpeechFile,
   htmlToSsmlItems,
   stripEmojis,
 } from '../src/htmlToSsml'
-import * as fs from 'fs'
-import path from 'path'
 
 const TEST_OPTIONS = {
   primaryVoice: 'test-primary',
@@ -309,4 +309,32 @@ describe('convert HTML to Speech file', () => {
       'I feel like I’m working on reading, listening, and speaking all at once, sometimes I feel like I’m just getting surface understanding. '
     )
   })
+
+  it('splits sentences in German correctly', () => {
+    const html = `<div class="page" id="readability-page-1" data-omnivore-anchor-idx="1">
+<p data-omnivore-anchor-idx="2"><span data-omnivore-anchor-idx="3"><span data-omnivore-anchor-idx="4"><strong data-omnivore-anchor-idx="5"><em data-omnivore-anchor-idx="6"><span data-omnivore-anchor-idx="7" lang="DE" xml:lang="DE"><span data-omnivore-anchor-idx="8">Q</span></span></em></strong><em data-omnivore-anchor-idx="9"><span data-omnivore-anchor-idx="10" lang="DE" xml:lang="DE"><span data-omnivore-anchor-idx="11"><strong data-omnivore-anchor-idx="12">:</strong> „Die kürzliche Razzia in den BBC-Büros in Delhi sind ein weiterer Versuch der Regierung, kritische Medien-Kommentare zu unterdrücken. Man hat des Gefühl, Herr Modi hat Angst, in den Spiegel zu schauen!?“</span></span></em></span></span></p>
+</div>`
+    const speechFile = htmlToSpeechFile({
+      content: html,
+      options: TEST_OPTIONS,
+    })
+    expect(speechFile.utterances).to.have.lengthOf(1)
+    expect(speechFile.utterances[0].text).to.eql(
+      'Q: „Die kürzliche Razzia in den BBC-Büros in Delhi sind ein weiterer Versuch der Regierung, kritische Medien-Kommentare zu unterdrücken. Man hat des Gefühl, Herr Modi hat Angst, in den Spiegel zu schauen!? “'
+    )
+  })
+
+  it('splits sentences in Chinese correctly', () => {
+    const html = `<div class="page" id="readability-page-1" data-omnivore-anchor-idx="1">
+  <p data-omnivore-anchor-idx="2">这是一段中文，我想看看它是怎么分句的。如果买二手房有中介参与，要找相对大的、知名的中介。中介的收费、服务情况要先问清。还要和中介谈好，中介费的付款时间，一般来说是签完合同付一部分，过户后付一部分，省的太早付完钱，中介就不管事了。付完记得要发票。中介如果提供贷款服务，让他玩去。贷款之类的问题，别怕麻烦，自己去找银行。</p>
+</div>`
+    const speechFile = htmlToSpeechFile({
+      content: html,
+      options: TEST_OPTIONS,
+    })
+    expect(speechFile.utterances).to.have.lengthOf(1)
+    expect(speechFile.utterances[0].text).to.eql(
+      '这是一段中文，我想看看它是怎么分句的。如果买二手房有中介参与，要找相对大的、知名的中介。中介的收费、服务情况要先问清。还要和中介谈好，中介费的付款时间，一般来说是签完合同付一部分，过户后付一部分，省的太早付完钱，中介就不管事了。付完记得要发票。中介如果提供贷款服务，让他玩去。贷款之类的问题，别怕麻烦，自己去找银行。'
+    )
+  })
 })
diff --git a/yarn.lock b/yarn.lock
index d4d318589..b6f05c40f 100644
--- a/yarn.lock
+++ b/yarn.lock
@@ -9473,6 +9473,11 @@ addressparser@^1.0.1:
   resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/addressparser/-/addressparser-1.0.1.tgz#47afbe1a2a9262191db6838e4fd1d39b40821746"
   integrity sha512-aQX7AISOMM7HFE0iZ3+YnD07oIeJqWGVnJ+ZIKaBZAk03ftmVYVqsGas/rbXKR21n4D/hKCSHypvcyOkds/xzg==
 
+afinn-165-financialmarketnews@^3.0.0:
+  version "3.0.0"
+  resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/afinn-165-financialmarketnews/-/afinn-165-financialmarketnews-3.0.0.tgz#cf422577775bf94f9bc156f3f001a1f29338c3d8"
+  integrity sha512-0g9A1S3ZomFIGDTzZ0t6xmv4AuokBvBmpes8htiyHpH7N4xDmvSQL6UxL/Zcs2ypRb3VwgCscaD8Q3zEawKYhw==
+
 afinn-165@^1.0.2:
   version "1.0.4"
   resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/afinn-165/-/afinn-165-1.0.4.tgz#3abf6b8922dd5db84d84e0abd155924381dd73a4"
@@ -20688,14 +20693,16 @@ natural-compare@^1.4.0:
   resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/natural-compare/-/natural-compare-1.4.0.tgz#4abebfeed7541f2c27acfb29bdbbd15c8d5ba4f7"
   integrity sha1-Sr6/7tdUHywnrPspvbvRXI1bpPc=
 
-natural@^5.2.3:
-  version "5.2.3"
-  resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/natural/-/natural-5.2.3.tgz#bfd9b9710139313edf6ec3172435e48998884535"
-  integrity sha512-fsGGpbU15YBc2oQCEsi0t7ZeF3VmKyxDhgWucQTPk4zaDFzeZtquRbZt4xlznN2ZUlH88215HcThMYaDHFM48Q==
+natural@^6.2.0:
+  version "6.2.0"
+  resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/natural/-/natural-6.2.0.tgz#74a45c66336e5c35057aba0fafb0f5351c81a201"
+  integrity sha512-/+ceiLjldGcMgCtryGJV6jS2IslPeLE+bwjXry9jOFNl586J1rV5egDa4X8nnPCZmzCeXrE4uHajpkuB/ILH2Q==
   dependencies:
     afinn-165 "^1.0.2"
+    afinn-165-financialmarketnews "^3.0.0"
     apparatus "^0.0.10"
     safe-stable-stringify "^2.2.0"
+    stopwords-iso "^1.1.0"
     sylvester "^0.0.12"
     underscore "^1.9.1"
     wordnet-db "^3.1.11"
@@ -25550,6 +25557,11 @@ statuses@2.0.1:
   resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/statuses/-/statuses-1.5.0.tgz#161c7dac177659fd9811f43771fa99381478628c"
   integrity sha1-Fhx9rBd2Wf2YEfQ3cfqZOBR4Yow=
 
+stopwords-iso@^1.1.0:
+  version "1.1.0"
+  resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/stopwords-iso/-/stopwords-iso-1.1.0.tgz#dc303db6b0842d4290bc1339b4eaf37b94219395"
+  integrity sha512-I6GPS/E0zyieHehMRPQcqkiBMJKGgLta+1hREixhoLPqEA0AlVFiC43dl8uPpmkkeRdDMzYRWFWk5/l9x7nmNg==
+
 store2@^2.12.0:
   version "2.13.2"
   resolved "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/store2/-/store2-2.13.2.tgz#01ad8802ca5b445b9c316b55e72645c13a3cd7e3"