Short replies to your comments:

1. There are a lot of things to improve, indeed like warning if things aren't available and they should. I'll take that into consideration for a next step.
2. I've been looking around for the most suitable cross-platform audio-player. Audio::Play seems to be suitable, but OeufMayo has tried to compile it in different ways on Win32 with no luck. I've contacted the author -Nick Ing-Simmons- who promised to update the CPAN-version because he has another version that DOES compile on Win32...sadly he didn't up till now despite some reminder-mails from me...
3. I'll take a look at Audio::Play::MPG123. I didn't look any further at it because I thought it was only a wrapper around some other tool. It would however be a great improvement if I could play MP3's.

I'm planning to use Festival for the speech-output, but Kevin Lenzo (one of Festival's authors) is still busy with the dutch language part...takes time...

Jouke Visser, Perl 'Adept'