1. A method for providing a speech output for a speech-enabled application, the method comprising: receiving from the speech-enabled application a text input comprising a text transcription of a desired speech output; selecting, using at least one computer system, a sequence of audio recordings for concatenation to produce the desired speech output, the selected sequence of audio recordings comprising a first audio recording for concatenation with one or more other audio recordings in the selected sequence of audio recordings, the first audio recording selected for being of a speaker speaking a plurality of words in the text transcription, wherein selecting the sequence of audio recordings comprises applying one or more selection criteria that favor the selected sequence of audio recordings for being a smaller number of audio recordings than other candidate sequences of audio recordings for producing the desired speech output; generating a speech output by concatenating the selected sequence of audio recordings; and providing the generated speech output for the speech-enabled application.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first audio recording is stored in a single audio file.